PRX-owned Radiotopia is adding two programs to its curated portfolio of podcasts. The Bugle is a satirical comedy show founded by John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman. The West Wing Weekly is a throwback fancast which offers a week-by-week discussion of the TV drama The West Wing Continue Reading
Podcast measurement company Podtrac today released its Top Podcasts report for September. It is the second monthly edition of that report, which started in August. In May of this year, Podtrac launched its Podcast Industry Ranking, which lists the top 10 podcast publishers. Continue Reading
With over 300,000 podcasts in the market, most of which are jammed into the narrow funnel of Apple’s Podcasts app, it’s no wonder that program discovery is a prominent pain point for consumers. Discovery is emerging as an issue for distributors, too — networks who are beating the bushes for talent to create new programs. Continue Reading
Bumpers is the newest mobile app exploring the podcast space. It allows people to record their own podcasts directly on their phone. The company secured $1 million in seed funding and its app is currently available on iOS. Spark Capital led the round, and Twitter co-founder and Medium CEO Evan Williams is involved as a strategic angel investor. Continue Reading
Australian podcast host Omny Studio released a new tool for sharing audio on Facebook. The company now offers automatically generated waveform videos called Visualised Audio. These customizable clips are intended to help podcasters get their shows ranked higher by the algorithms used by the social network. Continue Reading
At RAIN Summit Nashville in September, Steve Goldstein (Founder & CEO, Amplifi Media) moderated a panel called Podcast Forecast: What’s Next? The conversation went into fascinating detail about the present and future of on-demand audio. Click for full video. Continue Reading
Podtrac released its monthly podcast publisher rankings. The list shows the top Podtrac clients by unique monthly audience in the U.S., although it also shares the global unique streams and downloads for each publisher. After several months of little change to the order, September has a slight shake-up. Continue Reading
The podcast category is developing into a mature business market. Money is flowing in. Media buyers are increasingly interested in the podcast opportunity, with its distinctive qualities. But there are over 300,000 podcasts. It’s a long tail of content. Two revenue paths are opening up for indie podcasts. Continue Reading
Acast announced that it is offering all its signed podcasters free access to Epidemic Sound and Hindenburg Journalist Pro. Epidemic Sound is a curated music library specifically for creative productions. Hindenburg is a suite of radio production and editing software. Continue Reading
At RAIN Summit Nashville last month, Eric Nuzum of Audible sat for an interview with RAIN President Brad Hill to discuss on-demand audio, podcasting, and Amazon-owned Audible’s new ventures. “My mission is to expand digital audio to people who aren’t listening yet,” said Nuzum. Full video here. Continue Reading
Podcast host Spreaker, a keen developer of tools for producers, has launched new embedded web players for placing podcast episodes on web pages. The announcement shows graphical possibilities within the players — “Don’t just tell listeners your story, show it to them, too!” says Spreaker. Continue Reading
Brief news items and worthy reads from around the web: Interview with Universal’s top lawyer; show cancellation at Gimlet sparks questions. Continue Reading