WTF? Marc Maron to end podcast

• One of the longest-running and most popular podcasters Marc Maron is to end his podcast, WTF, after sixteen years. The final episode of the Acast-hosted show will be “sometime in the fall”. The comedian says that he and his producer Brendan are burnt out. “It’s the right decision for me. It’s the right decision for Brendan… It’s just time.”

• Eight kids podcasts are working together to grow podcast listening with The Summer Listening Challenge, inspired by classic library reading programs. Kids get a certificate for taking part, and special video messages if they finish all sixteen.

• The Podcasting, Seriously Awards Fund has awarded its 300th grant. The fund covers submission fees for producers, editors, and others, up to $200 per calendar year per creator. Canadian creative agency Sequel has become the fund’s latest partner.

• A Scottish voiceover, Gayanne Potter, claims she has had her voice “stolen” and used as the voice of ScotRail, a train operator. She spoke with AI Haven’t a Clue, telling them that she’d recorded voice samples in 2021 for ReadSpeaker, believing that it would only be used for e-learning and accessibility. She is calling for tighter regulations; ReadSpeaker says it has repeatedly addressed her claims.

• Meanwhile, The Orson Welles Estate has approved an AI voice clone of the actor to produce an audio guide, which is available within the StoryRabbit app. The actor died in 1985.

• Radio is becoming even more like podcasting, with the launch of a nightly radio show and podcast called True Crime Tonight. The show goes live this week on twenty broadcast radio stations throughout the US.

• In Australia, digital audio advertising is up by 18% year on year, to AUD $77.3mn (US $49.6mn). Digital video advertising is 15x larger, and increased by 23.3% to AUD $1.165bn (US $748.5mn).

• Thing we didn’t spot: Acast+ is going away, as mentioned at the bottom of a press release in April. The tool offered podcast subscriptions. The company has teamed up with Supercast. Note to self: sometimes, the biggest stories are in the last paragraph.

• Podcast discovery: Want a page with just some random podcasts on it? We’ve just built one.

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The Tech Stuff - with RSS.com

• Have you been sent a piece of spam from someone called Don Scott, trying to sell you a .podcast domain? There’s no such thing. He’s selling you a Web3 cryptocurrency-backed “alternate root domain” - a domain name that doesn’t work with your phone or your laptop without additional software, and a domain name that web search engines will never see, because they’re not available using the regular internet. Keep your money, we think.

• Buzzsprout’s monthly platform stats for May show an increase in market share for Spotify of more than 3%. Total downloads of Buzzsprout shows were down 5% in the month.

  • Data from Transistor matched this trend, with an increase for Spotify and a decrease for Apple Podcasts.

• Livewire reported a set of data for May 2025.

  • New episode market share for Spotify and Spreaker, the top two podcast hosts, were relatively static. Libsyn returned to a worst-ever figure after a slight improvement last month.
  • In terms of CDNs used, Amazon Cloudfront hosts 60.7% of all podcast episodes (including the Podnews Daily).

Tips and tricks - with Memberful

• Radio talent coach and podcaster Craig Bruce talks about how to convert a new listener into one that hits the follow button

• Podcast research matters more than you think, says The Podcast Host. While most podcast advice focuses on how to use a microphone and editing techniques, researching a story is just as important, argues Lindsay Harris Friel.

Podcast News

3 Takeaways has just achieved 250 episodes and 1 million downloads. Hosted by Lynn Thoman, a professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, 3 Takeaways distills conversations with global leaders, innovators, and changemakers into three actionable insights each week.

Turkish Airlines serves more countries than any other airline, and their podcast Turkish Airlines Series has nine episodes - everything from what to see in Istanbul, to tech travel tips, where to find the best turkish food, and how to keep the kids entertained while travelling. The show is also available on board, using the in flight entertainment system.

Starter Marriage is new today, hosted by relationship expert and New York Times best-selling author Allison Raskin and her husband John Blakeslee, a former undercover CIA agent. (No, really.) The podcast seeks to understand the evolving nature of marriage in contemporary society, questioning if it’s patriarchal, a trap, or an institution with new possibilities.

Book publishing company Rise Literary has launched Write the Good Fight - deep, real conversations about what drives people to write, how they endure the challenges of creation, and what it means to tell the truth in a world that often resists it. The show launched with three episodes last week, hosted by the company’s senior team.