James Cridland's PodNews For Wednesday, April 30

➽From podnews.net, your complete daily briefing for podcasting and on-demand.   Subscribe to get the full newsletter free

Wednesday, April 30, 2025


Spotify released its Q1/25 financial update. Making more than US$1.4bn profit in the quarter, the company saw a year-on-year growth of 10% monthly-active users to 678 million; 12% growth in premium subscribers (268 million), and 15% growth in total revenue (US $4.7bn). In the prepared comments to investors, Daniel Ek raised concerns about increased economic uncertainty in the world; and bragged that the company can now add new features to their apps six times faster.

Wondery has signed a first-look deal with Lindsay Graham and his company Airship. It’s the first time Wondery has done a first-look deal directly with talent. The two collaborate on American History Tellers and American Scandal.


Goalhanger is celebrating hitting one billion streams of its content. The company says it’s the biggest independent podcast producer outside the US.

Players of EA Sports FC will now be able to listen to podcasts and music from Spotify while they play. The pilot is testing in Australia and Saudi Arabia. The complication of music licensing is such that the press release notes “certain music is not currently available in this experience”.


CNN’s Christiane Amanpour is making her way to podcasting via the UK’s Global, the owner of a number of commercial radio stations in the UK and the popular News Agents podcast.


👉There's More To Read:  HERE




Tuesday, April 29, 2025








In the UK, the IAB says that podcast advertising grew by just 8% in 2024, to £90mn ($120mn) - a slowdown from a 23% growth last time. However, this number only accounts for audio podcast ads - the video display ad category, which includes video podcasts, grew by 20% year-on-year. (Now we know why the industry is fixated with a definition for what a podcast is - and the perils of being too narrow).


Spotify says that they paid out $100mn to podcasters in Q1/25. (That’s both ad-based revenue and from the Spotify Partner Program; the company haven’t split out the two).The focus on video by Spotify has resulted in the number of active monthly video podcasts increasing by 28%, and the release says that some publishers have seen weekly consumption increase substantially after introducing video.


Pocket Casts has launched automatically generated transcripts for Plus and Patron members. Transcripts will be automatically generated for “the most-followed podcasts”; the company continues to make creator-produced transcripts, using the podcast:transcript tool, available to everyone.Pocket Casts has also posted a guide to fiction podcasts for nonfiction listeners from Tal Minear.

One of the most popular podcasts in Australia is to go on a live stage tour. Conversations, with Sarah Kanowski and Richard Fidler, will visit every state and territory in Australia in August. Tickets go on sale on Friday.


Want to tell the world how much you know? The Association of African Podcasters & Voice Artists, AVPA, is looking for “seasoned industry experts and emerging talents to share their unique insights and stories with our audience.” You can find more information and submit your work on the APVA website.


👉There's More To Read:  HERE



Monday, April 28, 2025


Chinese podcasting company Ximalaya is reportedly to be acquired by Tencent Music for $2.4bn, reports Bloomberg. (Spotify bought Anchor for just $140mn). Ximalaya, which claimed more than 303mn monthly active users in 2023, spent $100mn on a US expansion in 2019 (though it may not have done); the company tried to float on the NYSE, but didn’t, and was going to float in Hong Kong, but hasn’t.
  • Himalaya’s highest-profile employee in the US was Peter Vincer, who made the headlines in Jun 2021 (though he denied the story); now called Notorious LLC, his company hasn’t posted on socials for the last five months (one of its last posts: a picture of Vincer dressed as Superman).


Spotify quietly launched a trending podcasts chart a few weeks ago: “designed to spotlight the shows that are getting people talking right now.” Available in many different countries, you can see it at the Spotify Podcast Charts website, or in JSON form.
  • It’s quite similar in intention to the Apple Podcast chart, which is also mostly based on trending information. And for bragging rights, it’ll be much better than the standard Spotify chart , since newly-launched shows should rocket to the top.


Podlibre has been launched - the project is to build an all-in-one, open-source, privacy-first desktop app to help make podcasts. Run by Benjamin Bellamy’s Ad Aures, it has funding from NLnet.

The New Zealand Podcast Summit is less than two weeks away. In central Auckland, it’s a day of networking, sharing and collaboration. Tickets are here, and include lunch, as well as morning and afternoon tea.


DeepCast has launched DeepChat, a method of chatting with podcasts using an “AI knowledge bot”. You can try it out by chatting with the Podnews Weekly Review - “what is the definition of a podcast” came out pretty well.


👉There's More To Read:  HERE


Friday, April 25, 2025


From the New York Times, The Daily, one of the most popular podcasts in the world, is to get two new co-hosts. Natalie Kitroeff and Rachel Abrams will join Michael Barbaro as co-hosts, as Sabrina Tavernise returns to a reporting role. Rachel hosts today’s episode. “Natalie and Rachel are the perfect journalists to take us into this new chapter,” said Barbaro.


Today is DNA Day, and also the launch day for Gene Pool Media, a new podcast network dedicated to healthcare and genetics. The new network brings together some of the most influential voices in science to reshape how scientific stories are shared.


BBC Studios has announced a partnership with The Podcast Exchange in Canada. TPX will be its exclusive third-party advertising reseller for BBC podcasts in the country.

Coming to The Podcast Show in London? New this year, if you’re coming from outside the UK or Ireland, you now need an Electronic Travel Authorisation, an ETA, to enter the country. It’s just £16 directly from the UK government.You can save on selected passes using code PODNEWS10


In the Podnews Weekly Review this week, we speak with Stefano Fallaha from Podeo on podcasting in the Arab states; and Gautam Raj Anand from Hubhopper on Indian podcasting after YouTube.


Magellan AI reports that T-Mobile was the biggest spender in US podcast advertising last month, spending $5.9mn on ads (with their top genre being sports). The full chart also links to a free webinar next Tuesday.

👉There's More To Read:  HERE




Thursday, April 24, 2025


YouTube is twenty years old this week (YouTube Music is ten years old this year, too). The company has posted plenty of new stats on its blog.


Hamish & Andy, who present one of the biggest podcasts in Australia, have signed a renewal deal, early, with LiSTNR owners SCA.


After the NASDAQ warned Cumulus Media that it might be delisted, Cumulus has announced that it will move off the stock exchange on May 2, “rather than investing time, effort, and cost into developing a plan to remain”. Its share price needed to be at least $1; its shares are down 90% over the last twelve months, and are currently trading at $0.27. Its Q1/25 results are out on May 1.

King’s College, London has worked with the BBC on a tool to help people with aphasia - a condition after brain damage following a stroke, that can lead to difficulties in speaking, reading and language comprehension. The tool can take podcasts or radio shows and simplify the language, making it easier to understand.


Podcastpage has introduced a new dashboard page, and is now offering automated AI transcripts, an AI-based page editor, and AI-generated SEO metadata tools.


👉There's More To Read:  HERE

No comments:

Post a Comment