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Monday, April 6, 2026
Good news from TuneIn: after closing podcast submissions in Feb 2024, TuneIn now appears to be accepting new podcast listings once more. You can just use TuneIn’s broadcaster portal; the directory has all of our shows there (here’s our daily podcast). The directory is the default way into Tesla cars, Sonos speakers and many more places; when we last covered TuneIn in Dec 2024, we revealed mass layoffs at the company; but it was acquired by radio and podcast producer Stingray in Nov 2025.
Exclusive: Libsyn and Buzzsprout have signed up with Apple Podcasts to distribute HLS video.
- Brendan Monaghan, President & CEO, Libsyn, said: “We view video as a natural progression for podcasting — giving creators more ways to engage audiences, deepen storytelling, and grow their businesses. This partnership aligns directly with our vision, as Libsyn continues building a next-gen platform, enabling creators to publish seamlessly across formats, distribute everywhere, and monetize more effectively than ever before.”
- Alban Brooke, Head of Marketing at Buzzsprout, said: “We’re excited to bring Apple Podcasts video distribution to Buzzsprout. HLS gives podcasters a great way to publish video to Apple Podcasts and makes it easy for people to listen or watch.”
- All top-10 podcast hosting companies now support HLS video, with one exception: Spotify for Creators/Megaphone. (Users of Triton Digital’s Spreaker can upgrade to Omny Studio). Most of these hosting companies, however, are not publishing pricing for video hosting, and support appears to be invite-only.
Twenty years ago this week, Podcast Generator, a free podcast hosting tool, was released. Used by more than 25,000 podcasts, Alberto Betella looks back at the tool and what it looked like in a full history. It’s a fascinating view of some of the early days of podcast history.
✔There's More: HERE
Friday, April 3, 2026
Newsletter platform Beehiiv has launched a full podcast hosting platform.. It contains full transcripts, distributes to Apple, Spotify and more, and comes with a full website; analytics are built “to IAB standards”, and you can bundle your podcast for paying subscribers to your newsletter; Beehiiv will take no additional fees. CEO Tyler Denk recently shared that Q1 2026 was beehiiv’s best quarter in history, as the company added $4.5M ARR, sent more than 10 billion emails, and crossed 50,000 active users.
- We have a full review with Tyler Denk on The Podnews Weekly Review this week.
- A number of shows have moved over to Beehiiv with the launch, including Tasteland, Womansplain, and AI Report.
- Podnews has also learnt that Beehiiv is to hire a Head of Podcasts.
Red Seat Ventures has launched its own invitation-only podcast hosting company, called Speakeasy. It offers hosting, ad-supported monetization, AI-powered analytics and support for RSS, HLS and video. It also integrates Supercast, the membership platform acquired in February.
✔There's More: HERE
Buzzsprout launched free automatic transcripts for all their hosting customers using a current paid plan. Transcripts appear in Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, and other apps. It has a transcript editor to help fix any words before publishing, and (unlike Apple Podcasts’s transcriber) will correctly identify different speakers. The company has also overhauled its chapters tool to work within the transcript editor.
Eddy Cue from Apple spoke with technology podcast TBPN, and the interview is in video in the show on Apple Podcasts. TBPN’s podcast host, Transistor, has posted about the show - and has used an embedded video from Apple Podcasts in its blog, which we didn’t realise you could do. Until now.
The shortlist for the Australian Audio Awards has been released. The awards, which are brand new this year, have a number of categories for podcasts.
NBC Sports has signed with Triton Digital for podcast hosting, measurement and monetisation. They’ll be using Triton’s Omny Studio hosting and the Triton Ad Platform, among other products.
It’s A Lot with Abbie Chatfield, one of Australia’s biggest podcasts, has returned to Acast with a multi-year partnership. The show was with LiSTNR.
Spotify added a set of new advertising formats within the app, including sponsored playlists and “carousel ads”, an option to feature up to six ads within the now-playing view. Spotify Ads Manager will also include Split testing and Automated bidding. The format will be “rolling out soon in beta to eligible markets”.
Today marks the launch of this year’s Podnews Report Card, our fifth annual piece of research into what podcast creators think of the platforms we all use. Previous years have uncovered significant pain points which have since been fixed by podcast platforms, including an easier method of submissions to Apple Podcasts, and control of comments about your podcast in Spotify. It takes just ten minutes to give us your views; we’ll report back in mid-May at The Podcast Show in London, and in this newsletter.
Exclusive: The 911 Podcasts sci-fi thriller podcast Cascadia has revealed six additional actors have joined the upcoming second season, which has just completed production.
The Virginia Queer Film Festival has launched an audio storytelling program, Queer Ear. They’re looking for audio-only storytelling pieces under 25 minutes in length from podcast series, anthologies, and stand-alone projects.
The future of podcasting is women, Acast argued in Italy, unveiling their 2026 Women in Podcasting research. It discovers that “the algorithm” may be against women creators, and that female hosts are better for advertisers than men.
The Trump Administration’s order to end federal funding for NPR and PBS has been permanently blocked by a federal judge. NPR is one of the largest podcast publishers in North America. It comes just a few weeks after a separate judge ruled that cuts for the Voice of America were unlawful. It’s unclear what these rulings mean in practice.
Thursday, April 2, 2026
- Buzzsprout has also added a welcome feature to its fanmail service: you can now reply to people who send fanmail text messages to you. That’s in addition to a new voicemail service, which was added this week too.
Eddy Cue from Apple spoke with technology podcast TBPN, and the interview is in video in the show on Apple Podcasts. TBPN’s podcast host, Transistor, has posted about the show - and has used an embedded video from Apple Podcasts in its blog, which we didn’t realise you could do. Until now.
The shortlist for the Australian Audio Awards has been released. The awards, which are brand new this year, have a number of categories for podcasts.
NBC Sports has signed with Triton Digital for podcast hosting, measurement and monetisation. They’ll be using Triton’s Omny Studio hosting and the Triton Ad Platform, among other products.
It’s A Lot with Abbie Chatfield, one of Australia’s biggest podcasts, has returned to Acast with a multi-year partnership. The show was with LiSTNR.
Spotify added a set of new advertising formats within the app, including sponsored playlists and “carousel ads”, an option to feature up to six ads within the now-playing view. Spotify Ads Manager will also include Split testing and Automated bidding. The format will be “rolling out soon in beta to eligible markets”.
- Talking about “rolling out soon”, Spotify is still not supporting creator-produced transcripts using RSS; nor enabling edits of their automated transcripts for many Spotify for Creators users. In Oct 2024, we were told that the company was actively working on "building support for creators to customize their transcripts”. (Our own transcripts for the Podnews Daily podcast are corrected before publication).
✔There's More: HERE
Wednesday, April 1, 2026
Exclusive: The 911 Podcasts sci-fi thriller podcast Cascadia has revealed six additional actors have joined the upcoming second season, which has just completed production.
The Virginia Queer Film Festival has launched an audio storytelling program, Queer Ear. They’re looking for audio-only storytelling pieces under 25 minutes in length from podcast series, anthologies, and stand-alone projects.
The future of podcasting is women, Acast argued in Italy, unveiling their 2026 Women in Podcasting research. It discovers that “the algorithm” may be against women creators, and that female hosts are better for advertisers than men.
The Trump Administration’s order to end federal funding for NPR and PBS has been permanently blocked by a federal judge. NPR is one of the largest podcast publishers in North America. It comes just a few weeks after a separate judge ruled that cuts for the Voice of America were unlawful. It’s unclear what these rulings mean in practice.
✔There's More: HERE
Exclusive: We’ve a full list of the podcast nominees for the 30th annual Webby Awards, before anyone else. For the first time, the awards have dedicated categories for video podcasts. iHeartMedia has sixteen nominees, Audible has ten; and both SiriusXM and Wondery have six nominees each. The winners ceremony will be on May 11.
Beehiiv is “making a push into podcasting”, says Semafor. For more information, we’ll be talking to Beehiiv’s CEO, Tyler Denk, in the Podnews Weekly Review this week for all the details - once the embargo has been lifted.
Branded podcasts are great - but once someone’s listened, they don’t necessarily connect with your brand until the next episode. Until now - JAR Replay launches today: a way to retarget those listeners again while they use other apps, to keep your brand and your message fresh in their mind.
Buzzsprout is rolling out a new addition to its “fan mail” service. Just by hitting a link in the show notes, your listeners can now record and send a voicemail. Try it here.
If you think there’s too much talking and noise in podcasting, then Thee Quaker Podcast has just released a whole hour of silence. Recorded in a historic Quaker Meetinghouse using a multi-mic spatial audio setup, it’s an hour of silent worship to disconnect from the noise of the internet.
A large pan-European broadcaster and podcast producer, Bauer Media Audio has launched its Rayo app on Android Automotive, into initial markets of the UK and Portugal.
Tuesday, March 31, 2026
Beehiiv is “making a push into podcasting”, says Semafor. For more information, we’ll be talking to Beehiiv’s CEO, Tyler Denk, in the Podnews Weekly Review this week for all the details - once the embargo has been lifted.
Branded podcasts are great - but once someone’s listened, they don’t necessarily connect with your brand until the next episode. Until now - JAR Replay launches today: a way to retarget those listeners again while they use other apps, to keep your brand and your message fresh in their mind.
Buzzsprout is rolling out a new addition to its “fan mail” service. Just by hitting a link in the show notes, your listeners can now record and send a voicemail. Try it here.
If you think there’s too much talking and noise in podcasting, then Thee Quaker Podcast has just released a whole hour of silence. Recorded in a historic Quaker Meetinghouse using a multi-mic spatial audio setup, it’s an hour of silent worship to disconnect from the noise of the internet.
A large pan-European broadcaster and podcast producer, Bauer Media Audio has launched its Rayo app on Android Automotive, into initial markets of the UK and Portugal.
✔There's More: HERE
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