Amy Poehler to speak at Evolutions

• Amy Poehler has been confirmed as a speaker at Evolutions by Podcast Movement, in Los Angeles this March. The stand-up comedian and Emmy Award winner hosts Say More with Dr? Sheila (for legal reasons, Dr? must be said in the form of a question), and is known for her work on SNL and Parks & Recreation. Discounted tickets are here.

  • Just before her appearance, our Editor, James Cridland, will unveil this year’s Podnews Report Card and a give a whistle-stop tour of the year in podcasting, and a few affectionate jokes about the industry if he can think of any.

• Triton Digital’s US Podcast Ranker for December 2023 is out. NPR’s shows are back in after being absent since August for a “planned data migration”.

  • The US ranker is ordered by weekly average downloads. The Australian ranker is default-ordered by monthly listeners .

• Triton Digital’s podcast hosting service is adding support for “sweepers”, short jingles or presenter announcements scheduled at the start or end of ad breaks.

• There have reportedly been 100 redundancies at YouTube. The company employs 7,173 people.

• On Air Fest has added more speakers to its event in Brookyln on Feb 28-Mar 1. It includes an interview with Ira Glass, a special session from Serial, and from Freakonomics, Stephen Dubner.

• RSS.com has made enhancements to its podcast pages, including an improved podcast player and its featured community page.

Are we all of a sudden being put in your spam box? We’d love to know if so. Hit reply and let us know - and if you’re able to tell us when that happened, that would also help. Thank you!

Moves and hires

• The Black Information Network has promoted Chris Thompson to SVP, News and Programming and Angela Ingram to SVP, Public Engagement.

Tips and tricks - with Patreon + Spotify

• Need to choose a podcast host? We’ve got some tips in what to look for.

• How did Jeff Shane make The Piketon Massacre? Or, for that matter, The Idaho Massacre? He writes about the tools and process he uses.

Podcast News - with Airwave

From Airwave: TRIVIALITY - A Trivia Game Show Podcast is a weekly pub trivia-style game show where a lack of seriousness meets a little bit of knowledge. You can play along with a fast-paced game every Tuesday, and enjoy monthly bonus episodes and mini-tournaments.

PodcastOne has renewed its agreement with Our Fake History. The podcast will air its 200th episode in March of this year.

Undertow: Narcosis is new today from Realm - a deep sea horror story of a woman who returned to a remote island to try and recover her former childhood friend, only to discover something unspeakable. Episodes release weekly from today.

In Spanish, the Central podcast hosts Bukele: el señor de Los sueños - looking at the story of the most popular president in Latin America, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. He’s a publicist who rose to the presidency and managed to convince a society that the only way to solve their problems was to give him unlimited power. It’s from Radio Ambulante Studios.