Australian Podcast Ranker adds three new publishers

• In Australia, three new podcast publishers were today announced to be joining the Australian Podcast Ranker. The Squiz, Shameless Media, and the country’s biggest podcaster the ABC. “Let the battle commence!” joked Commercial Radio & Audio CEO Ford Ennals, announcing the news at the IAB Australia Audio Summit.

  • IAB Australia CEO Gai LeRoy unveiled the company’s Audio Advertising State of the Nation Report, which is available for download; that discovered 70% of ad agencies used podcast advertising regularly in 2021, up from 36% in 2020.

• Spreaker has partnered with Musixmatch to offer transcriptions for podcasts. Creators hosted on Spreaker will be able to automatically transcribe their podcasts; it uses the podcast:transcript feature to appear in supporting podcast apps.

• iHeartMedia brought in $113mn in podcast revenue in Q4/22 (up 17% y/y), according to their latest financial data: that’s 10% of their total business (up from 9.2% q/q).

• You can now embed YouTube videos in Transistor website pages.

• iHeart has announced The Black Effect Podcast Festival, on Apr 22 in Atlanta GA, USA.

Tips and tricks

• Podcastpage share Podcast Descriptions: Why They Matter and How to Write Them

Podcast News

Decoder with Nilay Patel has Conal Byrne from iHeart on as a guest this episode. Patel asked Byrne about buying bogus podcast plays in game apps, and Conal - like the IAB before him - brushes it off as not really important. There’s a transcript here.

In Money Maker | Mi Mundo Rico with Nely Galán Nely brings listeners her hard-won business advice, stories of how being an immigrant informed her entrepreneurial mindset and actionable tips for listeners looking to grow wealth. It launches today from the Money News Network.

Dynamite Doug is new from Project Brazen and PRX today - looking at the strange tale of Douglas Latchford. He was the world’s expert on Cambodian art, supplying priceless statues to Western museums and collectors… but also worked with the Khmer Rouge to steal almost everything as the country descended into bloodshed. Was it the biggest art heist in history?

Wonderstruck is new today from Dr. Elizabeth Rovere, a clinical psychologist, looking at “those both humbling and empowering experiences that connect us to something greater than ourselves, while generating a sense of community with others and our natural world.”

Up Against The Mob returns for a second season today from the Vox Media Podcast Network and Cafe. In The Springfield Crew, host Elie Honig will revisit one of the most pivotal cases of his career – a Springfield mob story that helped unravel one of America’s most notorious crime families.

Podcast ads in the wild

Almost outside the ABC in Ultimo, Sydney NSW, Australia, we spied this electronic billboard for The Howie Games, from commercial competitor LiSTNR. This bus stop is called “Harris Street before Broadway”, and is situated on Harris Street, just before it turns into Broadw— oh, you guessed.