Chartable analyses the top platforms for podcasting

Chartable has published a “top podcast hosting platforms” piece of data work, analysing >500,000 podcasts in the Apple iTunes catalogue. It highlights hosts for popular podcasts and for podcasts with ten or more episodes (both of which are very different to the overall figures).

• Caution: The data, in many places, confuses “top RSS feed hosting platforms” with the audio hosting platform. As an example: the RSS feed for NPR’s Up First is hosted by npr·org, but as we note on that page, the audio is hosted by Triton Digital; npr·org is not the “podcast host”. Chartable say they are re-running the dataset and will post updated numbers in the next twenty-four hours. Expect Libsyn and Blubrry, who host audio and also offer tools for third-party RSS feed generation, to appear higher in the revised figures.
• Anchor appears to have been responsible for 33% of all new podcasts over the last six months. Anchor (who offers free accounts) automatically posts all new podcasts to Apple through Anchor’s own Podcasts Connect account, so Anchor podcasts were not subject to the same process as others.

Podnews is now available in Google Home or Google Assistant’s daily news briefing. You’ll find us in “technology” in any English-speaking country. Set us as a news source in the Google Home app (Settings > News), then “OK, Google, listen to the news” or “OK, Google, Good morning” for a weekday fix of podcasting news. “OK, Google, listen to Podnews podcasting news” also works for one-off listening.

• Got an Amazon Echo? We’ve not forgotten you. Set us up in your Daily Briefing on the Alexa app, or “Alexa, ask anypod to play Podnews.”

Google is apparently developing a new “podcast app” called Shortwave, says The Verge. The article is, however, almost entirely guesswork based on a pending trademark application.

Is there a need for incubators and mentors for podcasts? A new service, Episode Beta, promises to get your podcast idea “teamed up with the most brilliant experts and the most talented professionals of the industry”. Tommy Ferraz writes about the thinking behind it.

The UK’s Audio Production Awards, run by Audio UK, have announced a set of new categories. “Podcasters are welcome in any categories, although there is a specific 'Best Podcast Producer’ category,” says Managing Director of Audio UK, Will Jackson. Entries are now open.

New podcast studios are opened in Washington DC, USA, on 800 Maine Avenue SW.

The latest episode of The Wolf Den features an interview with Overcast developer Marco Arment.

A Mile In My Shoes is a weekly story-telling podcast from the Empathy Museum: “walk a mile in the shoes of a stranger and listen to their story”. It’s produced by Loftus Media (who are also speaking at Next Radio in September).

Wordpress are the latest investor in RadioPublic, through Wordpress’s parent company, Automattic.

French Canadians are consuming far, far less podcasts than their English-speaking countrymen, according to the Canadian Podcast Listener.

HotPod 174 discusses the PRX/PRI merger (in 1,787 words).