Happy 9th, 99% Invisible; Acast moves to IAB v2 guidelines

• Acast has sent an email to publishers warning them that from Oct 1 “many Acast podcasters will see a change in listener numbers - in most cases a decrease”. The company is switching to measurement using IAB v2 guidelines.

  • Similar decreases were flagged by Podtrac in May, Podbean in June 2018, Audioboom in Jan 2018, and Libsyn in Sep 2017 along with many others.

• Simplecast has enabled “passthrough” from Spotify, and integrated Spotify data in their dashboard. Of note: “You may notice differences between your Dashboard’s Spotify numbers and what you see in your Spotify Podcast Portal - typically Simplecast will be lower.”

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 16 2023

• Spotify is under fire for allowing children to listen to graphic podcasts. Episodes that aren’t marked as explicit, but nevertheless contain gruesome detail, are evading the new parental block function.

• A company called SoundStripe is setting itself up as a competitor to Podcast Music for commercial music licensing, according to the iHeart-owned InsideRadio. Meanwhile, Podcast Music’s service does not appear to yet have any record label agreements.

• The BBC has announced that it is to remove its iPlayer Radio app later this month for UK listeners, in favour of its BBC Sounds app. However, the iPlayer Radio app will continue to be available outside the UK, the corporation has clarified to us. (It’s not as if anything’s going on in the UK right now.)

• Anna Priestland, a podcast scriptwriter, is interviewed in the Sydney Morning Herald.

• Opening today: a new podcast recording booth in northwest Houston TX.

  
  Aug 16 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

Podcasts

Spreaker Prime: True Murder - the most shocking killersis a podcast where, every week, host Dan Zupansky interviews true crime authors, revealing the nitty gritty details about some of the most shocking killers of all time. Dan is using Spreaker Prime to earn money and cut hosting costs.

Happy 9th birthday to 99% Invisible. Creator Roman Mars asks for a nine-star review on iTunes to celebrate. (Radiotopia / PRX)

The Secret History of the Future, in its latest edition, compares the evolution of radio in the past 20 years (from independent to corporate) and wonders whether podcasting will be any different. (Slate / The Economist / Megaphone)