Radio tunes in: Entercom buys Pineapple Street/Cadence13; iHeart expands podcasts internationally

• Entercom, a large US radio broadcaster that owns 235 stations, has bought podcast studio Pineapple Street Media for US $18m, and bought the 55% of Cadence13 it didn’t already own, valuing the company at $50m, according to the Wall Street Journal. Pineapple Street Media will be re-christened Pineapple Street Studios as part of the deal.

  • In a separate announcement, Entercom has also announced the launch of the RADIO·COM Sports Digital Network, consisting of live programming and podcasts.

• Meanwhile, US radio giant iHeartRadio have announced plans to translate and launch many of their hit podcasts in multiple languages. In the first wave, they’ll translate six podcasts into “Spanish, Hindi, Portuguese, French, German and more”.

• Westwood One’s founder Norm Pattiz now owns PodcastOne, who have launched a new, always-free, podcast hosting platform for independent podcasters. LaunchpadDM promises that podcasters retain full ownership of their podcast and relationships with podcast aggregators, and when a show “begins to gain significant listenership, the creator may be offered the opportunity to become an official PodcastOne partner, including production and sales resources and support”.

• Audiences prefer shorter episodes and familiar hosts, according to a US survey. The survey also claims just 10% of US adults listen to podcasts several times a week. Edison Research suggests the number is more than twice that.

• Later today, we’re expecting an announcement about music licensing in podcasts. Follow Podnews on Twitter to stay in touch.

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• Luminary are “thrilled with the interest they’ve seen” since launch, according to a piece in The Daily Dot.

  
  Aug 15 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Libsyn has announced a new global partnership to distribute podcasts on Deezer, the global music streaming service. Deezer has 14m users. Blubrry will be doing similar next week. (Deezer all the places to put your podcasts, including, yes, Deezer).

• Podcast host Transistor has added a new embeddable player that supports multiple episodes. (Not with Transistor? Here are embedded players you can use).

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 15 2023

• Wavve has launched free “Wavve Link pages” with an episodes page - here’s ours - including links to subscribe and more information. Here’s where to claim yours

• Monocle, which publishes a number of different podcasts, is launching a new daily podcast. The Monocle Minute starts this Monday (though isn’t, yet, in Apple Podcasts). Monocle also produces The Monocle Daily, which is currently on haitus.

• At Podcast Movement, CEntrance will be showing off the MicPort Pro 2, a “portable professional recording interface for your laptop, tablet, or smartphone”.

• Evergreen Podcasts is the first podcast company in history to receive Ohio Motion Picture Tax Credits.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 15 2023

• Dave Zohrob from Chartable has spotted a new section in Google search - a podcast episode search result, complete with play buttons, which appeared on a desktop Google search for “podcast charts”. We see it too, but only in an incognito window for some reason.

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Podcasts

Spreaker Prime: Jade and XD describe their podcast as “the blackest show about nothing” - offering social commentary on anything and everything. They’re using Spreaker Prime to earn money and cut their hosting costs.

Condé Nast men’s lifestyle publication GQ has officially launched its Airplane Mode podcast on Megaphone. The podcast, about living healthier and smarter, initially surfaced in May. (Megaphone)

Inside Podcasting launches next week: Skye Pillsbury interviews podcast hosts about their craft, including Martine Powers from Post Reports, Leon Neyfakh from Slow Burn, and Jason Calcanis from This Week In Startups. (Skye, mine’s a pint of a decent craft IPA). (Libsyn)

The subject of Countdown to Capture, a podcast from the Newport Beach Police Department, has been captured, partially after tipoffs from podcast listeners. British-born Peter Chadwick, 55, was captured in Mexico and has been extradited to the US to face trial.