More than 1,000 shows are using Apple Podcasts paid subscriptions

• There are now at least 1,000 paid shows in Apple Podcasts, we can reveal today, just six weeks after the feature was publicly launched. We’ve discovered more than 500 different channels in Apple Podcasts; and more than 30% of those channels are paid-for. We list them here.

• Meanwhile, Fountain is new on the Apple App Store - a new podcast player that allows you to share podcast clips and also optionally support your favourite podcasts with Bitcoin, using value4value. An Android app comes shortly. (Here’s how to earn Bitcoin from your podcast).

• An automatic levelling and normalising tool, loudness․fm is available in beta. It’s free, and does all the magic work in your browser - normalising the audio to the standard -16 LUFS. Works with Chrome. Here’s more info.

  
  Sep 5 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Available On is a new universal links service for podcasts. We’ve added it to our page on how to get universal links to your podcast for everyone - though read the Tech Stuff today for something new.

• Many podcasters are converging on Nashville for Podcast Movement. So far, organiser Jared Easley has met someone with a Podcast Movement tattoo on their arm. We can’t join you this year, but please snag a t-shirt for us.

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• Fireside Chat, which launches properly this week, is already asking its own users to invest, says The Verge, which also says that the company will announce a partnership with podcast host Libsyn this week. Last week, we looked at Fireside’s terms and conditions; we’ve chatted with the company, but have yet to receive a statement. (That terms and conditions page also includes a look at the t&cs from Libsyn).

• The BBC has released stats for their podcasts and BBC Sounds for Q2/21. Total podcast downloads have dropped slightly from 265m to 257m. That places the BBC behind iHeartRadio and NPR, but just ahead of the New York Times’s Podtrac data.

  
  Sep 5 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• In The Observer, Miranda Sawyer shares why indie podcasts are in peril.

• A new edition of PodBible magazine was published yesterday. Check yesterday’s The Sunday Times for it if you’re in the UK, or download the PDF free from the PodBible website.

• This has managed to be played 1 billion times on YouTube, says The Verge.

• The London Podcast Festival has announced the first shows for their sixth year.

• Higher Ground has announced a number of new additions to its executive team. Priya Swaminathan is to leave the company.

• Auddy, a UK-based podcast publisher, has launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise £440,000 (US$610m).

• In Australia, the winners of the Radio Today Podcast Awards were announced. Meanwhile, the New York Festivals Radio Awards have announced their finalists, including 78 podcasts.

• Terra Firma Podcast Network has signed with Podcast Ad Reps (PAR).

• POC Podcasts claims it’s the first African podcast channel on Apple.

The Tech Stuff - with RSS․com

QR codes for podcasts are getting more popular: but where to link them to, so they work for everyone on every app? The Podcast Namespace team kicked some ideas round last week, and have settled on:

https://(a podcast page)#fastfollow-podcast:(a guid)

This means that the camera app on your phone will take you to a helpful website (which might even open your default podcast player), but “fast-follow”-enabled podcast apps use the podcast:guid in the podcast namespace to open the podcast directly within their app.

While you can set the GUID directly for your own podcast in your RSS feed, the Podcast Index’s database has assigned a GUID for every podcast.

Updated Podnews podcast pages, like Podland, for example, now include this fastfollow link as a QR code (desktop only); and you can scan it using the standard camera app on your phone, or within apps like CurioCaster.

Also today:

• Podcast host Justcast now supports podcast chapters in RSS feeds following the Podcast Namespace.

• Podcast host Podserve is now using podping, making new episodes appear instantly on the Podcast Index and compatible podcatchers.

• Want to host all your shows for just $3/month? Benjamin Bellamy successfully tested Castopod on the OVHcloud platform.

Tips and tricks

• How to make editing easier when recording your podcast - Rachel Corbett highlights all the ways to avoid editing more than you need to

• Jordan Harbinger spends more than ten hours doing preparation for every interview. It’s one reason why he can engage guests more deeply, he says.

Podcast News - with Podcast Fellows at Stony Brook University-Southampton

Send One Guitar round a country’s best singer-songwriters. Ask each to write a new song: then perform it on a podcast. That’s the concept of a new show that launches today, co-produced by the Mushroom Group: it’s exclusive on the LiSTNR app for the next month, then available to all.

Locked on HBCU is new from TEGNA, and is their first daily podcast dedicated to HBCU sports and athletes.

New from Intelligence Squared, It’s The Economy breaks down the complex economic ideas we have all heard of but don’t fully understand, and all in under 15 minutes. Host Nicola Walton is joined by an expert each week.