Triton Digital to produce a US podcast ranker

• Triton Digital is to produce a podcast ranker in the US, called Podcast Reports. Already signed up are NPR, Entercom (inc Cadence13, RADIO·COM and Pineapple Street Media), Stitcher and Cumulus Media (inc Westwood One). The company is already producing a ranker in Australia, the Netherlands and Latin America, and has been producing a ranker for online radio for some time; Triton Digital uses logfiles to produce IAB certified data.

• In an email, Stephen Hallgren from Simplecast has noted that preload="metadata" behaviour has changed on Android Chrome at some point recently, possibly since a new release in late October - trebling the amount of download data (and bringing it way above the IAB minimum). This potentially means that any player could succumb to the same issue that we noted earlier this week. Podtrac are keeping a close eye on this latest development: it may explain why the Us Weekly podcast saw such a traffic jump in November.

• Audioboom has appointed Stuart Last as their new CEO. He joined the company in 2014 (from Voxnest and the BBC), and was appointed Interim CEO in September. Meanwhile, Audible has a new CEO: Bob Carrigan (who joins from Genscape, a data company).

• Premium podcast company Luminary is now available on Alexa smart speakers.

• Pandora and AdsWizz has been awarded the TAG “Certified Against Fraud” Seal by the Trustworthy Accountability Group. The company says “it reassures buyers that Pandora is following anti-fraud best practices to combat fraudulent, invalid traffic and promote greater transparency in the advertising supply chain”.

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• Chicago-based podcast producer Dante32 has launched a podcast audit service. The team will review your podcast, giving tactical advice on marketing, content, analytics, hosting and distribution. They tell us that mentioning “Podnews” gets a special, year-end price of $500 per podcast.

  
  Aug 19 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• ChromeOS now lets you control audio, including podcasts, from your lock screen. Chromebooks are regularly the most-sold laptops on Amazon.

• TechCrunch have published a piece called 2019 - the year podcasting broke. In a small piece of irony, we can’t read it, since it’s a membership-only article, which is unavailable to us to even purchase since we’re apparently in the wrong country.

• Some podcasters are noting that their podcasts appear to be unavailable in some countries in Apple Podcasts. If this is happening to you, please let us know.

Tips and tricks - with Acast Open

• Ma’ayan Plaut thinks we should share our work to make a better podcast.

• In French (but Google Translate does a good job if you need it) - Pénélope Boeuf highlights the benefit of marketing your personal brand as a podcaster, as she hits one million listens.

Podcast News - with Spreaker Prime

Spreaker Prime: Direct Appeal is a podcast hosted by two criminologists who examine the case of Melanie McGuire, a woman who has been serving a life sentence for the murder and dismemberment of her husband for the last 13 years. She claims her innocence and they tell the story with help from expert interviews. They’re using Spreaker Prime to increase exposure and maximize monetization.

Podcast Gumbo is a new, weekly, podcast from the excellent Paul Kondo, who writes the Podcast Gumbo newsletter. It’ll contain three podcast recommendations, in less than five minutes. (Captivate)