James Cridland's PodNews: Your 3/21 Podcast & On-Demand Briefing

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03/21/2023
πŸ‘‰A new noise-reduction app is now available on the Mac app store. Hush uses AI to remove background noise and reverb from spoken audio, “with greater precision and fewer artifacts than previous approaches”, says the developer.


πŸ‘‰Spotify is rolling out a special experience for those observing Ramadan. The daily-changing, geo-personalised tool includes Ramadan-specific podcast episodes, as well as music.


πŸ‘‰YouTube has confirmed our story/guess yesterday that podcast creation and analytics tools in YouTube Studio are now rolled-out to all creators. (Confusingly, those tools are still described as a test by YouTube, but we’re told it’s a full roll-out.)


πŸ‘‰Maximum Fun, a podcast network, is to become a worker-owned co-op, after founder Jesse Thorn sells the company.


πŸ‘‰Nina Robinson from the Birmingham Podcast Festival is interviewed by PodBible.


πŸ‘‰There's More To Read:  HERE



03/20/2023
πŸ‘‰In a tweet, YouTube has announced that “podcasts are a go!” We think this means that podcast tools are now available on YouTube Studio for all (and 9to5google suggests this too); though podcasts are not visible in YouTube Music for anyone yet. An explainer video has been published, along with a new section in YouTube’s FAQs. YouTube has not responded to a request for comment.


πŸ‘‰Apple Podcasts has published details of how it distributes your show to listeners, detailing some users of the Apple Podcasts catalog.


πŸ‘‰Members of The Podcast Academy are able to vote for new board members. Standing are: Donald Albright, Chris Cochran, John Gauntt, Rob Greenlee, Sirisha Kuchimanchi, Juleyka Lantigua, Christy Mirabal, Sierra Reed, Seth Rubinroit, Jen Sargent and Matty Staudt. Members should log in to vote before Mar 30.


πŸ‘‰LinkedIn has launched the LinkedIn Podcast Academy, a six month incubator pilot for nineteen shows.


πŸ‘‰Facebook is shutting its audio channels in groups. It’s the last bit of the company’s former push in social audio to be closed. It launched podcasts in its app in 2021 (only in the US), and closed it a year later.


πŸ‘‰There's More to Read: HERE




03/17/2023
πŸ‘‰Spotify and NPR are detailing their new partnership in a post highlighting how the two companies are “forging a new partnership focused on diversification and discoverability”. The major partnership was announced last week at Spotify’s Stream On event and Podcast Movement Evolutions.


πŸ‘‰Audacy released financial results. Podcasting revenue was down 8% y/y. Excluding the loss of Crooked Media (which switched to SiriusXM in May), revenues would have been up 14%. The company claims 9% increase in Q4 downloads.


πŸ‘‰February’s US Podcast Ranker is out from Triton Digital. The top 5 remains unchanged; it measures participating publishers only; notably, iHeart-owned Triton Digital doesn’t measure iHeartPodcasts.


πŸ‘‰In the UK, it’s Red Nose Day, helping raise money to make positive change in the UK and around the world. Acast has produced a podcast mashup series, merging some of the company’s biggest UK podcasts together to help encourage donations.


πŸ‘‰Scripted podcast network Realm has announced new partnerships: the network now covers more than 120 shows.


πŸ‘‰Podcast Studio Ideas is a new website from Justin Jackson, featuring the home (and office) setups of different podcasters. The first profile is on Stephen Robles (who does the AppleInsider, HomeKit, and Movies on the Side podcasts).


πŸ‘‰BBC Local Radio journalists went on strike, after plans were unveiled to merge programming between stations. BBC Radio Humberside’s Amanda White, tweeting in a personal capacity, explains why there isn’t enough local digital content on BBC Sounds: pointing the finger of blame at BBC senior management. Particularly, while she broadcasts live on TV and can control a radio station, she points out she isn’t trusted to publish a thing on the BBC website.


πŸ‘‰There's More To Read: HERE



03/16/2023
πŸ‘‰Nomono has been named the 2023 SXSW Innovation Award winner in the “Audio” category. The company produces a cloud-connected, self-contained recording kit for capturing audio recordings in the field.


πŸ‘‰9to5Google has spotted upcoming code in the YouTube Music app for podcasts. The data indicates that podcasts will appear in your library tab; and the search function in the app will search podcasts as well. You’ll also be able to add episodes to your playback queue. YouTube Music gets podcasts in the US only later this year.YouTube Music on the Google Play store has more than a billion downloads on Android. (That makes it ten times more downloaded than Google Podcasts.) However, it has 1m ratings on iOS (Spotify has 25m) and 4.56m reviews on Android (Spotify has 28m).


πŸ‘‰YouTube is all very well, but the science says that audio is better than video, according to Australian branded storytellers Written & Recorded, who link to five scientific studies saying so.


πŸ‘‰Recapping: Gumball posted a recap from their webinar Pulling Back the Curtain on Podcast Ad Operations … while Steve Goldstein recapped View from The Top, the panel he hosted at Podcast Movement Evolutions (with Podnews’s Editor)


πŸ‘‰Spotify: Spotify’s CFO Paul Vogel is quoted by Deadline saying that the new, slimline business is more efficient. The company has been available in South Africa for the last five years; today it posts a list of the most popular podcasts by city (you’ll never guess who’s #1 - oh, you probably will). Meanwhile, the tech press is full of people whining about its new TikTok-like user interface.


πŸ‘‰There's More To Read:  HERE



03/15/2023
πŸ‘‰The iHeartPodcast Awards were announced in New York, hosted by actor and comedian Brian Baumgartner. The Podcast of the Year Award went to Las Culturistas, but in our list of the winners, which includes links, production companies and podcast hosts, you’ll see that out of 28 awards, iHeart won four (similar to last year). Unlike last year, no Spotify shows won any award; only two were nominated.


πŸ‘‰The Podcast Show 2023 in London has announced a number of speakers, including Adam Buxton, The News Agents, Nish Kumar and Alice Levine. Our Editor will also be speaking. Use code PODNEWS for a discount!


πŸ‘‰Agreements: Audacia has signed with AdsWizz to represent marketplace ad inventory across streaming and podcasts in Asia … Backyard Ventures has signed with Libsyn’s Automatic Ads to help monetise their content.


πŸ‘‰Data: Podcast creators seem fine with AI being used to generate podcast content, though podcast listeners are less convinced, says research from Acast. (Podnews does not use AI for generation of content) … Edison Research is announcing the top three podcasts in the US (based on total audience) in many popular genres this week. Here’s fiction, music and tv/film, and education, science and history.


πŸ‘‰There's More To Read:  HERE

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