Big increase in podcast listening in Canada

• In Canada, monthly podcast listening has grown 19% year-on-year, and now 46% of all Canadians listen every month. That data is newly released from Signal Hill Insights, just in time for PodSummit YYC in Calgary, which kicks off tomorrow.

• In July, Podnews covered Spanish public broadcaster RTVE, who blocked downloads from some open RSS podcast apps in favour of its own proprietary one. We’re delighted to report that users of AntennaPod are now able to listen to the broadcaster’s podcasts. Our reporting resulted in the team reviewing the app’s access.

• Congratulations to Jenna Weiss-Berman, who is to be awarded a Gracies Leadership Award. The awards are taking place in November in New York City.

• Change is possible. That’s the message from non-profit Project Everyone, ahead of the UN General Assembly. Some of the most influential podcasts from the UK and beyond are teaming up to launch a ‘Be Hope’ Podcast Takeover – a week of conversations designed to remind the world that change is possible.

• AI-slop podcast producer Inception Point AI, which uses unsupervised AI to generate thousands of podcast episodes every week, has admitted some of its content is only at a “kindergarten drawings stage” in a comment made to the Australian ABC’s Media Watch program which aired Monday. The show describes the company’s output as “a stinker” - highlighting one show about the history of the city of Sydney, which abruptly starts talking about Sydney Sweeney - and the presenter, Linton Besser, says he’d “rather listen to a leaf-blower at dawn on a Sunday.”

  • Meanwhile on Tuesday the company made a combative blog post saying “clearly, we’ve struck a nerve”.
  • Amplifi Media’s Steven Goldstein listens to a few.

• Amplitude Media Partnews (AMP) has launched AMP Advantage - a tool to allow podcasters to tap into both programmatic and direct-sold ad campaigns.

• The UK’s Radio Academy has announced a change of name, to the Audio Academy. The organisation has increasingly involved other parts of the audio industry in its support and promotion.

• Also in the UK, RAJAR has released an edition of e-magazine “RAJAR Audio Time”, focusing on audio consumption in the country. Brits listen to 11% more audio than they did a decade ago.

• Today, there’s a special edition of Hark Daily, as part of a focus on public media and the challenges it faces after funding changes. The company will also presenting Defunding and Defending Public Media, hosted by Avery Trufelman, featuring podcast conversations on the defunding of the CPB and how it will impact public radio, and Stories from Local Public Radio, highlighting the kind of gems that could be lost with the slashing of the CPB budget.

Educating To Be Human

Paid content

A most timely Season 2 of Educating to Be Human, hosted by the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME) founder and CEO Lisa Petrides, is now available. This season takes listeners to the heart of the questions shaping learning today, bringing together rising influential voices from across disciplines to spark conversations that inspire reflection and action.

Each episode features in-depth discussions with guests who explore new perspectives and think deeply about the ways in which we teach the necessary skills, values, and curiosity that help us thrive as individuals and as a society. From libraries at risk to meditation that successfully replaces detention in schools, these are the people driving change from the ground up.

Subscribe and listen today!

Find us at educatingtobehuman.org; follow us at @edutobehuman on Instagram, X and Bluesky.

Tips and tricks

• The Podglomerate has published a new episode of its podcast Podcast Perspectives focused on “How to Get Your Podcast Reviewed by Media.” The conversation includes insights from Alice Florence Orr (Managing Editor of Podcast Review) and Joni Deutsch (The Podglomerate's SVP of Marketing and Audience Development), who joined forces to share industry best practices and advice on how to get podcasts featured by major news like Vulture, The Guardian, NPR, and beyond. You’ll find out how to know what critics are really looking for in a pitch, so you can stand out, tips to build an authentic relationship with those in the media industry, and how to leverage a single feature for additional audience growth and marketing exposure,
  • While we don’t review podcasts, here’s how to get your podcast into Podnews.

Podcast News

While Daniel Tosh made a big announcement about it a few weeks ago, it’s never official until the press release comes out. His Tosh Show is now working with Libsyn for ad sales. The comedian gets more than a quarter of a million downloads per episode.

Heavyweight returns today for a much-anticipated new season, with Pushkin Industries and iHeartPodcasts. Episodes include a man who lies his way into the director’s chair of a big-budget film; a 102-year-old woman who falls in love again with a man she knew as a young girl; and a 14-year-old boy who commits an armed bank robbery.

The award-winning Bone Valley has started a new season, exposing how the state of Kentucky has wrongfully convicted six people. The season covers what it calls the most troubling wrongful conviction cases in recent memory.

Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider, an Oscar-nominated producer and host of TED Health, returns today with Season 2 of Before We Go, a Podcast Nation Original. The series explores life, loss, grief, and unexpected perspectives — from caregiving to psychedelics — revealing how facing our own mortality can deepen real-life connection and meaning.