Apple Podcasts glitch removing ratings?

Welcome to over 100 new subscribers last week, including people from Spotify, Vox Media, Slate, Luminary, MPR, Acast and Oxford Road.

• Something strange is happening in the Apple Podcasts app: podcast ratings in some cases are being recalculated and can even entirely disappear. Reader Josh sends us this example. Meanwhile, many others are seeing their number of ratings being significantly reduced in the app - “trying to figure out why it said I had 33 reviews when I could only see 25 to read”, says one Facebook commenter, “I went from 60 to 30” says another. Are you seeing this too? Hit reply and tell us.

• Supernatural drama The Black Tapes is to become a TV show on US television network NBC.

• Retisean is technology that records and analyses you to give an “emotion-scale” level for your voice - marketed for public speakers, but perhaps useful for podcasters too.

• Podcoin is an app that rewards you for listening to podcasts. 10 minutes listening earns one “podcoin”. To earn $2 to spend on Amazon, assuming you could listen to podcasts for three hours a day, you’d be listening for over three months. Listen to three hours of podcasts every day for 18 years, and you could afford a set of Bose headphones. The app uses the ListenNotes API, and has no visible method of earning revenue.

• Gimlet, the podcast producer in Brooklyn NY, USA, shows off its beautiful studio complex. It opened in August 2018, designed by acoustic architectural firm WSDG.

  
  Aug 8 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• A hit podcast is now a store in Sydney Airport. You Beauty is now a temporary skincare product shop in domestic terminal 2. It’ll be there, nestling alongside the Virgin and Tiger planes, until March.

• Cult of Mac magazine, which is freely available online, has a cover feature on how to turn your iPad into a podcasting machine.

• There’s been another comedy sketch about podcasting on US television - this time on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. It features none other than Sarah Koenig - for real, this time.

Stats and data

• The Black Tapes has 41.5m downloads to date.

• Podcasts account for 4% of all audio listening in Australia - up from 3.2% last year.

Opinion

• Nick Hilton writes a manifesto for podcasting in 2019, highlighting the very real commercial pressures for podcast producers.

  “2019 can be … a year where podcasting gets aggressive as an industry. Print advertising is dying. Online advertising is dying. Advertisers and publishers alike are losing confidence in traditional models.”

• UK financial newspaper City AM covers the unstoppable rise of podcasts. Included is Paul Blanchard of the MediaMasters podcast, a Podnews supporter, who says of his podcast:

  I’m absolutely certain it’s helped with client acquisition and client retention.

• Wil Williams emails with a piece of advice that applies to every single podcaster:

  There is no best [x] for podcasting. There is only the best [x] for your podcast.

• John Biewen predicts in Nieman Lab that in 2019 we’ll see more podcast series. He’s a genius!