The effect of Samsung’s automatic downloads

• At one point, Samsung Free’s automated podcast plays were responsible for more than 1-in-10 podcast downloads, Podtrac tells Podnews today. The problem first appeared around November 14, and peaked at 10.7% of all daily downloads on Nov 27. According to Podtrac data, the issue appears to have been corrected. Podtrac will temporarily remove all Dalvik counts from its monthly podcast and publisher rankers for November.

• You can now officially be a podcaster - IMDb has added “podcaster” as an official profession. Here’s Adam Buxton and Simon Mayo as two examples.

• Riverside, a popular remote recording tool, has published new terms and conditions. They appear to be entirely rewritten: new clauses include forced arbitration, and a significantly expanded disclaimer. They’re now subject to New York law, rather than law in Israel.

• DM Podcasts and NOVA Entertainment are to end their commercial partnership at the end of next month. NOVA had hosted and commercialised the company’s shows since July 2021; DM were previously with ARN’s iHeartPodcast Network, while NOVA once had a partnership with Acast.

• The Asia Podcast Festival took place in Singapore over the weekend. The winners have yet to be published, though one of the awards given at the event was to Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post.

• Multitude Productions has announced they’ll be offering a set of new classes for working podcasters. A new set of four-week seminars, they’re named The Multitude Extension School for Folks Who Want to Podcast More and Better (MESFWTPMAB for short, and we’re really not making this up). The first round of classes will run from Jan 16 2023: registration is open now.

• American Public Television is launching a podcast studio.

• Further reading: What happened in audio in 2022? Amplifi Media’s Steven Goldstein looks back at the year, and takes a glimpse at 2023.

Moves and hires

• The founder of PodcastOne and Westwood One, Norm Pattiz, died on Sunday. He was 79.

• Emma Jane Kirby has joined Blanchard House as a producer. She joins after spending almost 30 years at the BBC as a reporter and documentary maker.

• At Harry and Meghan’s company Archewell, the Head of Audio Rebecca Sananès is reported to have resigned. In October, she’d posted on Instagram: “The podcast industry is severely undervaluing and under crediting the INCREDIBLY talented and hardworking producers and sound engineers behind your favorite shows.”

  • Serena Regan is her replacement at Archewell. She joins from Cadence13 and SiriusXM.
  • The CEO of Archewell, Mandana Dayani, resigned over the weekend too, suggesting that she was only standing in during Harry and Meghan’s parental leave.

Join us for ‘Safe and Sound’

Paid content

Brands and Agencies are often concerned with brand safety and suitability across the advertising channels they use. The current brand exodus from Twitter is just one example of how public opinion - and risk tolerance - can shift overnight.

Many of the decisions brands make about safety and suitability are based around assumptions derived from general consumer behavior, but do those assumptions apply to podcasting?

As a part of the Sounds Profitable Research Series, we are about to find out! Join Tom Webster and Bryan Barletta this Wednesday, December 7th at 1pm EST, as they present the first-ever study of brand safety and suitability from the listeners’ perspective, Safe and Sound.

Podcast News - with Campaign Legal Center

The Dr. Epicopolis & 1102 Show of Shows from Wonkybot is going interactive - allowing its listeners to vote on where the story goes next. Wonkybot co-founder Todd Fisher says “the interactive component gives kids and families a new way to be actively engaged with the show by letting them have a say in what happens to the characters.”

Star-Lord, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Wolverine and Doctor Doom take a final journey to the Wastelands in the new release of Marvel’s Wastelanders - it’s the sixth and final installment of the popular series and marks the first-ever audio crossover event for Marvel’s podcasts.

NBA Pulse with Sarah Kustok is new from iHeartPodcasts and the NBA. Hosted by Emmy-Award winning sports analyst, host and reporter Sarah Kustok, the show will feature a rotating group of the most respected NBA App writers to discuss recent articles and feature stories and hear their perspectives on big news around the league.

The Tape Agency has launched Homegrown Daisy today - a brand new fashion and popular culture podcast all about jewellery in partnership with Daisy London, from women, for women, designed to champion female voices. Each week co-founder and creative director of Daisy London, Ruth Bewsey sits down with a different famous face to talk through some of their most significant life moments and the jewellery pieces that carried them through it.

Workaholism, stress, burnout… and exhilarating joy? The new podcast from global consultant and thought leader Joel Pilger gets raw and honest about the work-life grind at the creative industry’s highest levels. The Fabulist launches today.