Almost Tangible wins big at the NY Festival Awards

• Almost Tangible, who’s Macbeth was recorded on location in 360-degree binaural sound, has won a number of awards at the New York Radio Festival Awards, including a Grand Trophy and 4 Gold Trophies for Best Digital Drama, Best Drama Podcast, Best Director and Best Sound. The company was awarded Production Company of The Year. We first covered them in November.

  • The winners are on the NYF website. Congratulations also to Podnews supporter Lantigua Williams & Co.’s 70 Million, which was bronze winner in the category of Narrative/Documentary Podcasts; and to supporters NPR and Megaphone / Panoply for your winning entries too.
  
  Aug 14 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Edison Research and NPR are unveiling their Smart Audio Report 2019 study today at 2pm New York time in a free webinar. Tom Webster and Joel Sucherman are presenting the highlights of their findings about smart speaker use. 69% of smart speaker users are using them daily; but a majority say they don’t know enough about their device to use all the features it offers.

• Danny Baker, a much-loved and much-sacked UK radio presenter, is to start a podcast based on his most recent BBC 5 Live show. He was fired after an ill-advised tweet a few months ago. Previously on another station, he learnt of his imminent sacking before going on-air, and proceeded to broadcast a full show railing against the management. His new podcast starts next year.

• New data in Ireland suggests that one in three Irish adults listen to a podcast every month.

• Reid Hoffman’s Masters of Scale is hosting its first ever live event in Boston on July 23, with “an awesome guest”.

• Podcast·co, a podcast host, has added a feature allowing podcasters to add a Patreon or PayPal account to their own podcast page.

• After a minority shareholder threatened to replace Libsyn board members by calling for a special meeting (Podnews passim), the Libsyn board have changed the company bylaws to require a vote from the majority of shareholders to make such a change.

• Jacobs Media and Podcast Movement have announced the agenda for the Broadcasters meet Podcasters track at Podcast Movement, designed for radio broadcasters.

• In France, Adidas is working with madmoiZelle, a young female media outlet, on Conquérantes, a podcast highlighting sportswomen.

• Les Echos, a French newspaper, carries an opinion piece claiming that radio stations need to 'urgently’ sort out what they’re doing in podcasting.

• Radio France is claiming 60 million downloads per month.

• PodFrance is a French-language newsletter containing the above three stories, and more stories from the country.

• Πώς να ξεκινήσεις το δικό σου podcast is a piece in Greek from Creative Mind Sessions host Christodoulos Ypodimatopoulos on how to start your own podcast.

Podcasts

Up From The Grave is an examination of a deadly fire in an Arkansas reform school. Hosted by CNN’s Don Lemon, it’s billed as CNN’s first ever original audio immersion 3-D podcast. (WarnerMedia Podcast Network / knit)

True Crime Chronicles promises a new true crime story every week. Episode 1 is titled “Little Sky Gone”, and investigates the disappearance of 2-year-old Sky Metalwawa outside Seattle in 2011 and the bizarre circumstances that have baffled law enforcement trying to solve the case; Episode 2, titled “Mr. X”, looks into the largest cluster of strangulations in American history, in the Atlanta area and why dozens of murders are still unsolved. (VAULT Studios / Podbean)

WWE legend Steve Austin returned with new episodes of his The Steve Austin Show podcast last week. The new episode, featuring Tony Khan, got over a million downloads in six days. The network had been rerunning 'classic podcasts’ from the past five years. (Podcast One)

22 Hours: An American Nightmare debuted with more than 2.3m downloads in its first ten days. (PodcastOne)

The Cool Kids Table from non-profit NikoFrank Productions, celebrates kindness in the entertainment business. Each guest is “specifically chosen for their unique motivational story and how any obstacle can be overcome with dedication, hard work and most importantly, kindness”. (Simplecast)

Hacks on Tap is a new podcast from Cadence13 with political strategists David Axelrod and Mike Murphy. The podcast “will take listeners behind the scenes of top-level American politics and campaigns, offering their insider perspectives and analyses on the state of American politics in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election.” (Cadence13)