The best podcasts of 2020: Apple Podcasts unveil their shows of the year

• For the first time, Apple Podcasts has recognised a set of “Shows of the Year”. We have a full list from all major territories. Public radio dominates the winners, including NPR for Code Switch, the BBC for The Joe Wicks Podcast, and in Australia, the ABC for The Eleventh.

• Apple Podcasts have also curated a list of the “biggest shows”, “biggest new shows”, and editorial favourites. We have a list of the biggest shows from all major territories. Your local list is here in Apple Podcasts.

• The number of podcast listeners in Italy is on the increase, says new research from Ipsos. 30% of 16-60 year-olds in the country now listen, up from 26% the year before. The data also says that 15% of podcast listeners listen on smart speakers.

• The buzz is that Eric Johnson, formerly of Vox Media, has launched his own independent podcasting company. Johnson produced Kara Swisher’s Recode Decode: “Bumblecast” will offer consulting and produce original shows.

• For the month of November, Buzzsprout report that 32.3% of their downloads went to Apple Podcasts, with 25.5% of downloads to Spotify, and Google Podcasts getting 2.6%. The company tells us that, after some tweaks to their algorithm, this is a more accurate reflection of total downloads to Apple Podcasts than previous data from the company.

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• Missing Joe Rogan now it’s an exclusive show on Spotify? Step forward Spotifeed, a clever piece of coding which turns an exclusive Spotify show into an RSS feed for you to listen to on your normal podcast player. (The audio still comes from Spotify’s servers).

“We will continue to do everything we can to help them keep creating content and making money from it, in an open, diverse and inclusive podcasting ecosystem.” - Ross Adams, Acast

• Acast has reiterated it firmly believes in the open podcasting ecosystem. Ross Adams, the CEO of the company, highlights the importance of an open industry in a blog post today.

• Slow hand-clap for music artist Drumkoon, who’s the author of an album on Spotify deliberately built to stop Google Assistant from working properly.

  
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Tips and tricks

• Wondering how to get rid of the echo in your audio? CrumplePop have a piece of software that claims to do it - called EchoRemover 2.

• A useful podcast how to and resource list from Amelia Chappelow

Podcast News - with Fable & Folly

Fable and Folly presents Dumbgeons & Dragons. A comedic actual play podcast created by your new best friends telling the story of 2 adventuring groups trying to save the world.

American Coyote tells the story of an legendary man and unlikely hero, Elden Kidd, who crossed over a thousand migrants from Mexico into the US. It’s new from Westwood One, Pegalo Pictures, and Imperative Entertainment’s Podcast Division.

It might seem crazy what I’m 'bout to say - Pharell is launching his own podcast network, OTHERtone Media. His podcast, OTHERtone, starts next week. That’ll make you happy.