Auphonic’s automatic episode note generator

• Auphonic has launched an AI-powered automatic generator for shownotes, summaries and chapter points. It’s competition for Buzzsprout, who partnered with Podium, and Capsho. Auphonic’s API is used by many podcast hosting companies.

• The Australian Podcast Ranker for May was released. Both ARN’s iHeartPodcast Network Australia and SCA’s LiSTNR claim various #1 slots. The #1 publisher in the country is the ABC, but they are still not participating in the ranker; they announced their participation in March (and in Oct 2019).

• As part of the Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute, authored by Nic Newman, a chapter examines the consumption of news podcasts in a number of countries. Repackaged radio output dominates in less-developed podcast markets, the report finds; Spotify is the #1 place for listening to news podcasts except in the US, where the top spot is, apparently, YouTube.

• Apple is threatening to remove Damus, a NOSTR-based chat service, from the app store. The company’s concern is that “zaps” - a way to send people a small amount of money - could be used to circumvent Apple’s payment system. If upheld, the ruling threatens “value4value” podcast apps, which use a similar system, and even services like PayPal or Venmo.

• LiveOne is to launch PodcastOne TV, a FAST channel, this summer. The channel could appear on services like Pluto, Amazon FreeVee, Roku, Samsung TV Plus and others.

• Fans of jumping in muddy puddles, rejoice - Peppa Pig is coming as a podcast - at least, as an Audible show, made with Hasbro. Snort!

• In Germany, the nominees of the Deutscher Podcast Preis were announced. There were 999 entries this year; winners will be announced on Jul 6.

Podcast News

UK car marketplace Autotrader has got this Show On The Road - a podcast that that takes celebrities out of the studio for a personalised road trip around the places that shaped them. The show starts today with TV personality Scarlett Moffatt, driving us to county Durham.