Broccoli Productions to close

• Podcast production company Broccoli Productions is to close this week. The company, which lists six members of staff on its website, says its partnership with Sony Music Entertainment ended early - the joint venture was announced in October 2019. Sony made a number of redundancies at the end of last year; and closed an earlier JV with Three Uncanny Four in Jan 2022.

• The Dudesy podcast has been sued by George Carlin’s estate for apparently training an AI tool on five decades of Carlin’s work, and producing a podcast that “imitate[s] his voice, cadence and attitude”. It turns out that it wasn’t written by AI anyway; that won’t stop the legal action.

• Podcast Movement has announced Podfronts, its inaugural podcast upfront-style event at Evolutions on March 26. The event brings together podcasting’s top publishers with brands, agencies and buyers.

• ESPN is the latest television station to put podcasts on the small screen. ESPN2 will televise an ESPN video podcast every weekday at 2pm ET from today.

• Erik Jones has posted a further collection of “very scientific charts about the podcast industry”.

Get the free Podnews newsletter for more like this

Get it free

• The International Women’s Podcast Awards will be held on Wednesday June 19 in central London.

• The Gimlet Union reports that Spotify management are not participating in contract discussions. The Ringer Union “has made notable progress” on its negotations though, but differences remain.

• News about Zencastr Clips, the company’s AI-powered clipping tool: cela fonctionne désormais pour les clips en français, es funktioniert jetzt für Clips auf Deutsch, ahora funciona para clips en español, e agora funciona para clipes em português.

• The Pod, a new podcast studio, has opened in Brisbane QLD, Australia.

• Science YouTube channel Kurzgesagt explains “How we make money on YouTube with 20mn subs”. Its shop earns 40% of its revenue. YouTube ads account for just 13%.

30,000 thanks to you. We ticked over 30,000 subscribers at the end of last week. It’s just a number, but it’s a good number, and we’re grateful to you for being one in 30,000!

The Tech Stuff - with RSS․com

With a single feature, Apple Podcasts have established themselves as an actual advocate for RSS podcasting, and not just its hospice attendant - Dave Jones writes about Apple Podcasts’ announcement that it was to add transcripts using the open Podcasting 2.0 tag. (If you’ve been in a cave: last week’s news - and our big FAQ)

• Libsyn is erroneously marked as a podcast host supporting transcripts by Apple Podcasts. Libsyn’s support team has clarified that it does not support this feature (unless you write the XML yourself in Libsyn4, and host your transcripts separately). The company criticised Podcasting 2.0 in its official podcast last week.

• The new podcast namespace is currently considering how to allow podcast creators to add “hashtags” for podcasts, to help with more precise categories and better discovery. There’s more details in the Github.

Tips and tricks - with Patreon + Spotify

• How to choose a great name for your podcast (Podcast Generator)

• How to Build a Podcast Audience (Red Circle)

Podcast News - with Airwave

From Airwave: - and brand new to Airwave - For the Love of History uncovers the people, events, and little-known-facts hidden in the shadows of your old history textbooks. Expect turkey gods, the history of the toothbrush, and tattoos - and everything inbetween.

FT News Briefing, the daily podcast from the Financial Times, has launched a new weekend edition. It will focus on the intersection of money and power in US politics, as the country gets closer to November’s election. It started last weekend.

The Grammys are coming up this weekend, and Song Explorer has been launched this week by Caloroga Shark Media. The show promises to unravel the layers of each track, discussing everything from the initial spark of creation to the final studio production. All this week, the nominees for best song are featured, kicking off with Taylor Swift’s Anti-Hero.

A major investigative podcast from the UK’s Sky News and The Independent is made available today. Patient 11, in the Storycast feed tells a shocking story of abuse by people who are supposed to care for their patients: NHS mental health inpatient units across England. Eighteen months in the making, the investigation has sparked calls for a wide-ranging inquiry.

The Daily Aus is running a three-part special on vaping in Australia - the laws, the loopholes and what they’re doing to our lungs.

The BBC’s Brown Girls Do It Too is back for a new season. An award-winning podcast, it talks about things that we can’t talk about in an email and still hope to get it through email firewalls. Vox Media put us into spam purgatory recently, as one example, and we’re still not sure why. Anyway, if you know what “it” is, then this is for you.