Cleanfeed wins an Emmy Award

• Online studio Cleanfeed has won an Emmy Award for Engineering, Science & Technology. The award is for the tool’s role in the creation of the audio tracks for television series such as Star Trek: Discovery, The Crown and The Flight Attendant; Cleanfeed is also used by many podcasters for live studio links (including the podfather himself, Adam Curry). Mark Hills tells Podnews: “Thank you to the community of podcasters who have been a major influence on Cleanfeed. Ideas originating from podcasting and audio drama have been an important part of the innovations in Cleanfeed that contribute to this Emmy Award.”

• Are programmatic ads bad for podcasting? Tom Webster, writing in Sounds Profitable, suggests it’s more about creative execution (and bad assumptions) than technology.

• The new Buzzsprout Ads have earned independent podcasters more than $100,000 so far, according to the company.

• Is the BBC under-performing in podcasting? The BBC claims a new record number of weekly users for its audio app, BBC Sounds; but in the release, we learn there were 177m “plays to on-demand radio and podcast content” in Q2 on the app, and a further 264m “global podcast downloads” on third-party platforms. Assuming 50% of plays went to on-demand radio (which is probably a understatement), that suggests 117m podcast downloads a month overall, making the world’s largest broadcaster smaller than the New York Times. (And even if plays aren’t downloads, we know how many automated downloads aren’t listened-to, and that doesn’t change much).

• TikTok filed for a trademark for TikTok Music in May, for (in part) “providing on-line non-downloadable software that provides users with podcast and radio broadcast content”. A podcast app?

• Acast has signed a further ad sales agreement with The New York Times, monetising This American Life and Serial in the UK.

• Blubrry has announced it is now offering its hosting customers free podcast training. The service is run by The PodRocket Academy, and includes a free tier as well as a lifetime discount for paid training.

• Edison Research will unveil The Latino Podcast Listener Report 2022 in a free webinar on Aug 16. It’ll be presented by Edison Research’s Gabriel Soto and Elsie Escobar from Libsyn and She Podcasts.

• The music industry is set for a dramatic post-lockdown comeback, suggests Will Page, the former Chief Economist of Spotify and PRS for Music. The average music artist saw a cut in income of 70% in 2020, but Page argues there’s a “coiled spring” of demand for live events. (The same could be said for podcast live events, too).

• Indie podcast hosting company Transistor is celebrating its fourth anniversary. Co-founder Justin Jackson takes a look at how the company has grown in an article that contains an archive entry from Podnews in 2018.

• Australian podcast network LiSTNR has made their first rom-com audio fiction series. Jennifer Goggin and Steph Van Schilt, who worked on the show together, are interviewed by Australia’s Audiocraft newsletter.

Tips and tricks

• If You Want Your Audience to Listen, Try Shutting Up: embrace silence, suggests JAR Audio.

• Want to make someone anonymous? How To Protect Your Podcast Guest, from The Podcast Host, gives better advice than just strange pitch changes.

An editorial note - Podnews never goes away, but you’ll find some features taking some time off during the month of August.