James Cridland: From our daily newsletter,
the latest from podnews.net with Split Screen from CBC.
Day passes for the podcast show 2025 in London
are now available.
This time round, the show will include
an independent podcasters hub,
connecting independent podcast creators
with a range of talks and networking moments,
and two new stages, the content creator stage,
focusing on multi-format content creation,
and the open forum stage dedicated to open debate
and discussions around the hottest topics in podcasting.
The event is on May the 21st and 22nd.
You can use code podnews10 to save on tickets.
Podnews is a media partner and I'm on the advisory board.
Reflecting that this was a tough year in media,
former Cumulus podcast network SVP, John Wardock,
is offering an hour of free consulting
to those who've lost their jobs this year.
We'll link to more information.
UK production company Listen has been nominated
for a UK television award.
The broadcast awards are held in early February.
The company made The Traitors Uncloaked,
a visualized podcast broadcast on BBC television.
And that, by the way, is coming back in early January.
Magellan AI has confirmed that it's earned
IAB Tech Lab certification for podcast measurement.
It looks like Spotify's recent big launches
have had an effect.
The number of new episodes hosted on Spotify for Creators
increased last month to 23.7%.
It was on 30% this time last year, though.
4.6% of all podcast episodes in November
still used Chartable as a prefix.
And none of those podcasts will be listenable to
from December the 12th when that service goes away.
You better remove that tracking code
if you're still using it.
And Elsie Escobar has launched a new program
to step back, reflect, and realign your podcasting journey.
And thank you to Chris Peterson and to Jeremy Enns,
who've both joined us as our latest personal supporters.
Podnews wants to ensure everyone gets access
to news and information about podcasting
so we don't have paywalls, special meetings,
or secret Slack chats.
Instead, our supporters help everyone in the industry,
and you can become one as well at podnews.net/patreon.
And thank you.
It's a Monday, so time for some tech stuff.
The Podcasting 2.0 podcast this week
goes into more detail about what they call
the walletpocalypse, changes needed to future-proof
streaming payments in podcast apps.
Oscar Merry from Fountain explains some of the reasons
for the changes and shares some demo code.
The demo code is on a website called podpay.org.
There's a live demo, some examples, and some library code.
Interestingly, the changes also open up
the opportunity of cross-app comments,
which have long been a desired feature of new podcast apps.
Meanwhile, if you have one, old Alby wallets
will disappear by January the 4th.
You can transfer your sats to services
like Strike or others.
And more podcasts are powered by Amazon CloudFront
than ever before.
57.3% of all November's episodes used
the content delivery network, says Livewire,
including this one.
And in podcast news from Magnificent Noise,
have you ever wondered what should I do
with my life?
Enter Becoming You, hosted by Susie Welch,
a business journalist turned professor
at the helm of NYU's wildly popular self-discovery course.
And we thank Magnificent Noise for their support this month.
Tiny Matters has joined Multitude,
the show that's into genes, microbes, and other tiny things
that have a big impact on our world.
Join scientists Sam Jones and Deboki Chakravarti
as they take apart complex and contentious subjects
in science and rebuild your understanding.
The Spanish language podcast newsletter
has launched a companion podcast,
Puerto Rico's Tropical Podcasting,
has launched Que Esta Pasando en el Podcasting,
which will cover the latest news, tips, and strategies
in the podcasting industry.
And would you go on a reality show
if you didn't know what it was about,
even if they promised you the adventure of a lifetime.
In 2005, 12 people did just that.
They answered an ad that read Thrill Seekers Wanted
and began auditioning for a show unlike any other
in British television history.
From CBC Split Screen, Thrill Seekers exposes how a TV show
left contestants struggling to trust what's actually real.
There's a promo, in just a second, for today only
because this podcast is sponsored by CBC.
And from CBC, that Split Screen podcast features
character-driven narrative series,
taking listeners inside the unsettling
and captivating world of entertainment and pop culture.
And CBC is now accepting pitches.
You'll find a link in the show notes.
And that's the latest from our newsletter
to read all the stories and subscribe.
We're at podnews.net.
CBC promo: A TV crew offers 12 ordinary people the chance
to take part in the adventure of a lifetime.
But there's a catch.
We're asking, so what is the thrill?
Can you give us more detail?
And they said, no, that's it.
So if you want to be on the show,
stop asking that question and get on with the auditions.
The audience knows everything,
but the contestants are kept completely in the dark.
They showed me a picture of nothing.
I think it was paint or like a messy paint picture.
Now, what do you see?
I think they were trying to work out,
okay, is the person that's taking this test
likely to make things up in order to fit in?
Yeah, I still didn't know what we were doing.
Might be, I don't know, selling you my kidney.
I don't know what it is.
No questions allowed.
They just have to do as they're told.
It's probably two o'clock in the morning,
two or three o'clock in the morning.
They had soldiers in the background
running around singing and rushing.
And it was just frantic and people shouting at you.
I mean, I don't like getting told off,
so I'm doing as I'm told.
But as the show goes on, things start to spiral.
That distinction between what's real, what's not,
who's telling you what's real,
who's telling you what's not.
I wouldn't say I had total control of my mind
at that point.
Your grip on reality?
Yeah, my grip on reality was pretty all over the shop.
And eventually, even the production team
starts second guessing what they're doing.
As we got on later into the show,
I started feeling really guilty.
Everybody had a day where they felt guilty
and thought, should we be doing this?
Is this too cruel?
Well, I mean, the word deceiving is,
it's a very loaded word, isn't it?
These people were genuinely up for an adventure,
wanted to take part in a TV show
that was gonna be a bit of a rollercoaster.
And they certainly got that.
Until finally, the truth is revealed.
That's when I felt angry.
That's when I realised how stupid I was gonna look.
I'm getting upset.
Split Screen Thrill Seekers is a new six-part series
where reality meets reality TV.
Listen now.
This is a CBC podcast.
For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca/podcasts.