Our audio news briefing on Google

Today, we made the difficult decision to withdraw our daily audio news briefing on Google devices.

We’d have preferred to have kept it - but we believe Google has misconfigured this service, sending us hundreds of thousands of downloads per day that aren’t being listened-to.

This misconfiguration is costing us hundreds of dollars a month. We believe it is also costing Android phone users considerable extra bandwidth bills for audio that they’re not even hearing.

In spite of sharing server logs and offering to work with Google, our concerns have been misunderstood and dismissed by Google’s audio news team.

We have published technical details here.

Keep listening to Podnews

You can find our daily audio update in your favourite podcast app - just search for Podnews Daily.

If you need a podcast app, and you’re using an Android phone, we recommend Pocket Casts or AntennaPod. And if you’re on iPhone, we recommend Apple Podcasts.

Sorry

We’re sorry we’ve been forced to withdraw this service. We’d have preferred to have kept it going.

Unfortunately, Google’s treatment of its content partners is, at best, muddled and confused; and at worst, shabby and dishonest.