The leading audio production trade group in the UK is petitioning the government to give tax relief to podcast production houses, following precedents in the movie, animation, children’s TV, videogames, theater, museum exhibition, and orchestra businesses. The idea is to reduce corporate taxes applied to podcast and audiobook production that meets certain criteria. Continue Reading
Twenty-eight 1st-place awards, and three times that many total awards, were bestowed over the weekend by the British Podcast Awards. VENT Documentaries won Podcast of the Year — a show in which investigative stories are told by young people from a single London borough. The winner list of nearly 90 shows provides great discovery browsing, especially for American audiences. Click for details and link. Continue Reading
James Cridland returns with a richly informative newsletter about radio around the world. In this edition he joins UK mourning for Jonathan “Jono” Coleman, who died two days ago. ALSO: the BBC annual report, news from Australia’s SCA, new ad delivery technology from AdsWizz, and more. Continue Reading
Podtrac has released the June edition of its two monthly rankers: Top Podcasts and Top Podcast Publishers. Regular followers of these lists can probably recite the top three in each. Stability reigns both in the podcast and publishers list, and also in the overall measurements. Click for details and the lists. Continue Reading
James Cridland returns with a richly informative newsletter about radio around the world. In this edition he identifies a chronic and damaging failure of audio production, complete with an illustrative DAW waveform. Plus much more. Continue Reading
It has been nearly two weeks since Facebook’s June 21 announcement that podcast listening was added to the platform. The plan was a limited roll-out with four selected podcasters. We check their pages excitedly to try Facebook’s first audio-specific platform experience. Crickets. Continue Reading
iHeartRadio is announcing a mentoring and incubation program called NextUp, to cultivate and fund what the program’s leader, Anna Hossnieh, calls “underrepresented diverse creators.” Hossnieh is an iHeart executive producer and host of the Ethnically Ambiguous podcast. Continue Reading
James Cridland returns with a richly informative newsletter about radio around the world — and a new email format. In addition to what the title promises, James describes an interesting Spotify/radio, or radio/Spotify, playlist. Continue Reading
Facebook belatedly joins the audio age today … but just barely. The company is simultaneously launching Facebook Podcasts and the new Audio Rooms product. Click through for descriptions, details, and speculations. Continue Reading
Australian audio company ARN has gained exclusive podcast Australian ad sales representation for The New York Times, the company announces. The deal facilitates Australian advertisers reaching the entire NYT portfolio. ARN also operates the iHeartPodcast Network Australia. Continue Reading
American Public Media (APM) announces this morning a sales and content development agreement with Cadence13, an Audacy company, wherein Cadence13 will exclusively represent ad sales for APM podcasts, and the two organizations will collaboratively develop new shows. Continue Reading
by Steve Goldstein
Podcast intros are way too long, and audiences are increasingly frustrated — we agree with guest columnist Steve Goldstein. Top-of-show chatting and rambling is a holdover from podcasting’s youth, and feels increasingly out of touch with the medium’s professionalization. Steve makes an interesting comparison with long-running TV shows. Continue Reading