Audacy plans an audio subscription service

• US broadcaster Audacy, which recently filed for bankruptcy protection, has a new business plan which includes an audio subscription service, according to iHeart-owned Inside Radio. Audacy says it could deliver “as much as $20 million in revenue by 2027”. The company owns a number of podcast companies including Cadence13 and Pineapple Street.

• On Monday, we covered the premium Elfsight podcast player widget, which preloads audio against IAB podcast measurement guidelines. Elfsight mailed us after publication, saying that they had no plans to remove the preload feature. We told them why it matters for podcasters: and they have now confirmed that they will, after all, stop the widget from preloading audio. A new release is due today.

• Actor James van der Beek has failed in a bid to take Sirius XM to court. He’d alleged breach of contract for a $700,000 podcast deal. A Californian judge said on Friday that he’d never signed the agreement.

• Amazon was the number one spender on US podcast ads last month, according to Magellan AI. The company spent $8.1mn. Apple was #3. There’s a webinar tomorrow at 11am ET.

• Brand safety and monetisation company Sounder is to launch a set of open APIs for its Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and transcription technology. Meanwhile, Seekr announced a new brand safety and suitability platform for advertisers. Seekr Align aims to “double podcast industry ad revenue”, by helping premium advertising brands understand the brand safety and suitability of hundreds of thousands of podcast episodes.

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• Manifest Media, a podcast studio, has announced a strategic partnership with podcast network Realm.

• PodcastAddict’s latest update has been denied by the Google Play Store. The podcast and radio app is used 60,000 times every day by users to set alarms to wake up to their favourite podcast; but Google is now prohibiting this functionality.

• Is “Podcasting 2.0” clear enough? In the latest episode of The Feed, the official Libsyn podcast, Rob and Elsie highlight some of the problems with the new features, including poor app support and that it’s difficult to explain, especially to those new to podcasting in general. (We’ve a short transcript).

• Alby, which powers the majority of “value4value” payments for Podcasting 2.0, was down for seven hours yesterday “after a patch update from our infrastructure partner”.

Enter The Webbys. Reward your team's success.

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Entering The Webby Awards is a great way to recognize your team’s achievements. Just by participating, you show your team that their work deserves global recognition. It also signals to the industry that your team is one to watch, and work with. This is great for talent retention and attracting the best people in audio.

Enter the 28th Annual Webby Awards by the Extended Entry Deadline on February 9th, 2024.

Tips and tricks - with Patreon + Spotify

• Can you use commercial music in your podcast? How about a five second clip?

• Is there an easy way to email a link to your podcast - so people can listen directly in their email program?

Moves and hires

• Nicole Beemsterboer has been hired as Executive Producer of Bloomberg’s Big Take DC. She joins from Gimlet Media, where she was Managing Director.

Podcast News - with Airwave

From Airwave: Wiser World has just joined Airwave. Designed for busy people who forgot—or never learned it in the first place—and need a quick refresh, Wiser World takes world history and makes it approachable and concise.It’s hosted by Alli Roper.

Simple English News Daily, a seven-minute daily podcast containing news from at least four continents, has reached five million downloads. According to the podcast’s press release,almost all that growth has come from Spotify, while Apple Podcasts has shown no growth. The most popular country for the podcast is Japan.

What Was That Like, hosted by Scott Johnson and Glassbox Media, has reached 10 million downloads. The podcast is conversations with people who have experienced the extremely unusual. This week’s episode is with Hali, who was in the Colorado movie theater when a deranged gunman started firing. If you have a crazy story to tell, you can find Scott at Podfest Expo this week.

The Weekly Mac is new from Caloroga Shark Media - but don’t let the name fool you. The only thing to do with Apple it’ll cover are those apple pies with the insanely hot filling you get from your favourite fast-food store. For tales from the drive-thru, exciting menu updates, and the discovery that in parts of Europe, burger restaurants also sell beer - if you’re into your fast food, this podcast is sizzling.