Buzzsprout adds free transcripts

• Buzzsprout launched free automatic transcripts for all their hosting customers using a current paid plan. Transcripts appear in Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, and other apps. It has a transcript editor to help fix any words before publishing, and (unlike Apple Podcasts’s transcriber) will correctly identify different speakers. The company has also overhauled its chapters tool to work within the transcript editor.

  • Buzzsprout has also added a welcome feature to its fanmail service: you can now reply to people who send fanmail text messages to you. That’s in addition to a new voicemail service, which was added this week too.

• Eddy Cue from Apple spoke with technology podcast TBPN, and the interview is in video in the show on Apple Podcasts. TBPN’s podcast host, Transistor, has posted about the show - and has used an embedded video from Apple Podcasts in its blog, which we didn’t realise you could do. Until now.

• The shortlist for the Australian Audio Awards has been released. The awards, which are brand new this year, have a number of categories for podcasts.

• NBC Sports has signed with Triton Digital for podcast hosting, measurement and monetisation. They’ll be using Triton’s Omny Studio hosting and the Triton Ad Platform, among other products.

• It’s A Lot with Abbie Chatfield, one of Australia’s biggest podcasts, has returned to Acast with a multi-year partnership. The show was with LiSTNR.

• Spotify added a set of new advertising formats within the app, including sponsored playlists and “carousel ads”, an option to feature up to six ads within the now-playing view. Spotify Ads Manager will also include Split testing and Automated bidding. The format will be “rolling out soon in beta to eligible markets”.

  • Talking about “rolling out soon”, Spotify is still not supporting creator-produced transcripts using RSS; nor enabling edits of their automated transcripts for many Spotify for Creators users. In Oct 2024, we were told that the company was actively working on "building support for creators to customize their transcripts”. (Our own transcripts for the Podnews Daily podcast are corrected before publication).

• The EarBuds Podcast Collective released preliminary learnings from an audience survey. “Clicks don’t tell the full story”, says founder Arielle Nissenblatt, pointing out that many readers don’t click the link in the newsletter for a podcast, but instead open their app and search for it.

Tips and tricks - with the Podnews Report Card

• Want to embed your show directly into a webpage? Apple Podcasts offers full embedding tools, including a video player - here’s what it looks like for TBPN’s Eddy Cue interview.
• Building a brand new website? The Apple Podcasts icon has slightly changed to get a fancy liquid glass look. You might want to look as though your website is from 2026, instead of 2025.

Podcast News - with Airwave

With Airwave: Book Riot is the largest independent editorial book site in North America, and Book Riot - The Podcast contains news from the world of books and reading, including hot industry releases, adaptations, publishing industry events, and more with Jeff O’Neal and Rebecca Schinsky.

Podcast discovery newsletter Find That Pod has launched Talk That Pod, “conversations with the most interesting podcasters in the world”. The first guests are Hall of Famer Arielle Nissenblatt, Howard Dorre and Jimmy Gownley.

Deeply Unimportant, a sleep podcast that reads technical manuals as a remedy for insomnia and anxiety, has been rewarded by a feature in Apple Podcasts Canada this week. The latest episode features the engineering specifications of corrugated fibreboard, from the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry, including the precise moisture-to-liner ratios required for Mullen Burst resistance.

G’day! Spiders! Snakes! Vegemite! No fuel at the servos! The Americans Talk Australian Survivor podcast has reached its 100th episode (just as contestant Simon reaches 100 days playing the game). The ridgy-didge fan podcast recaps each episode of Australian Survivor from an American perspective.

The Edge of Everyday has joined the Magic Thread Media network with a fresh new look. Hosted by actor, inter-spiritual minister, and storytelling teacher Sandra Bargman, the show has raw, soulful, and provocative conversations that challenge the status quo. Sandra and her guests explore the intersection of identity, spirituality, and social change, offering you a “provocative invitation” to leap out of your comfort zone and into a more conscious, authentic way of living.

The Obit Project is a new podcast from Jad Abumrad (founder of Radiolab and creator of Dolly Parton’s America and Fela Kuti: Fear No Man) and University of Montana Journalism Professor Jule Banville (An Absurd Result podcast), who teamed up to help journalists make a new kind of obit, through sound. From an obituary about a circus elephant, to one about a historian with an affection for ghosts, these are rich, honest stories about the lives of real Montanans after they die.