From our free daily newsletter, the latest from podnews.net with
SupportingCast.
FlightCast, a new video-first podcast platform, has been
launched by Stephen Bartlett, the host of The Diary of a CEO,
and Roxcodes, the former engineer at MrBeast.
The tool is an all-in-one platform for distributing, analysing
and growing video podcasts across YouTube, Spotify, Apple and
more.
Podcast hosting and marketing platform Ausha has announced that
shows hosted on its platform have surpassed 1 billion cumulative
downloads.
The company attributes its success to its range of marketing
tools that help increase podcast visibility.
The IAB suggests that podcast advertising will top $3 billion in
2025 for the first time.
According to Matt Chappo, who was speaking at the IAB podcast Upfront
last week,
AdResults Media suggested that audio's future is louder, smarter
and more visual than ever in a piece about the event.
In Spain, Spotify held its Podcast Live Sessions event with some
of the country's biggest podcasters.
One in three Spotify users in Spain consumes podcasts, the
company said,
and the country is the ninth biggest for global podcast
consumption.
Last week, we covered the news that an episode of Stephen Bartlett's
Diary of a CEO is being shown in UK cinemas $20 a ticket the day
before it's released for free on YouTube and Spotify.
That raised a few eyebrows on social media.
After all, who would pay to watch a podcast that'll be free just
12 hours later?
So how's it doing for sales?
Well, in Glasgow, about 90% of the seats are sold.
In Manchester, 80% are sold.
One screen in London is entirely sold out.
Another is about 60% full, though the big screen in London has
plenty more space.
Audacity, the open source audio editor, is up for a big redesign.
You can download a pre-alpha, which one YouTuber has, and given
it a bad review.
The video we link to covers that and gets into the new Audacity
design after about five minutes.
You'll find it linked in our newsletter today.
The Golden Globe's podcast eligibility list has been widely
criticised for not including new heights,
despite its wide talkability this year, and being based solely
on popularity,
having no limited-run narrative podcasts.
As one example, Kill List, Podcast of the Year at the recent
British Podcast Awards,
wouldn't achieve eligibility at all.
And as a by-the-by, New Heights gets a name check in Taylor
Swift's new album.
And the New Jersey Web Festival announced its 2025 Audio Fiction
Award winners.
The Best of the Best Award went to Howl, a lyrical dark fairy
tale for everyone who has ever had their voice silenced.
It's a Monday, so time for some tech stuff.
And here are some things we've not seen before from Flightcast,
which launched today.
They appear to have access to a video publishing API at Spotify.
Judging by one of its screenshots, which we have today in our
newsletter,
one of its analytics screens shows time with video visible on
screen, which is interesting.
Transistor statistics show downloads appearing to come from web
browsers have increased 173% since February.
Buzzsprout statistics show web browsers jumping 163% in the same
time.
Libsyn stats also show a significant increase in the past few
years, though their figures are actually down since February.
For our own podcast, we're also seeing increases in browser
traffic, or at least in things that pretend they're browsers.
Is there something going on?
Whisper CPP has been updated to version 1.8 with performance
improvements.
And the Pod News Daily podcast, that's this one, is now
available in two HLS streaming formats.
A master manifest linking to a low and high bitrate stream.
Lots of new hires at The Guardian in the UK.
Annie Kelly is appointed today in Focus presenter, joining Helen
Pidd.
And Nosheen Iqbal, fronting the flagship Daily News podcast.
Lucy Howe is appointed today in Focus Extra presenter, with Zoe
Hitch, appointed lead producer, and Ryan Ramgobin joining from
Channel 4 News as senior producer.
James Tyndale joins from Pod Save the UK as lead producer video
for audio, and will help shape and execute the video podcast
strategy.
Eternity Uifo joins as a social video producer, and Natalie Geegan
joins as a social video designer.
Rory Simon joins from the newsagents as video producer, and Matt
Bentley Viney has joined as a social video producer.
Both will work on the Football Weekly podcast.
And in podcast news, the Media Club with Matt Deegan this week
comes from the British Podcast Awards,
and includes an interview with the founders of Hera, the female-focused
video podcast company.
Twisted Tales with Heidi Wong is new from PAVE Studios.
Today, Heidi Wong unearths the chilling true stories behind the
world's most terrifying legends, from haunted dolls to cursed
houses.
Each episode reveals the disturbing real-life events that
inspired horror's biggest blockbusters, and the ones too twisted
to make it to screen.
And if you're curious about what's really happening in Denmark,
and how it affects the life of internationals living in the
country,
each week, two hosts from the Last Week in Denmark volunteer
community talk through the top news stories and developments in
English,
sharing personal insights and international perspectives.
It's a clear and accessible conversation about life in Denmark,
made for people who live in Denmark, but who didn't grow up in
Denmark.
And this podcast is sponsored by Supporting Cast.
Most podcast platforms hold your subscribers' payment data
hostage, but Supporting Cast earns their partner's trust by
helping them grow their subscription business, not by locking
them in.
Build your own empire, not someone else's.
To find out more about Supporting Cast, there's a link in the
show notes.
And that's the latest from our newsletter.
To read all the stories and subscribe for free, we're at podnews.net.