38 percent of Americans listen to podcasts to improve their mood

• 38% of Americans listen to podcasts to help improve their mood, according to new research from Deezer. The music and podcast streaming company found that Americans are three times as likely to use podcasts to combat loneliness, compared to some European countries.

• An update from Anchor, following our story yesterday that Anchor could automatically delete your account without warning. Anchor say that they do not have an algorithm that automatically deletes duplicates; instead, the company uses a combination of automated and human-detected signals to assess potential infringement, and they tell Podnews that podcasts are always elevated to a human before any action is taken. In the case we reported on, the podcast had “similar content to the Libsyn-hosted Spotify listing”, and it had other negative signals which led to its removal.

• Veritone One has subscribed to Nielsen’s Podcast Buying Power Service. “Veritone One will have access to podcast insights spanning 18 genres and over 150 individual podcast titles that can be cross-referenced among a variety of consumer purchase behavior patterns and services usage.”

• Bubba The Love Sponge Clem, a radio personality in the US, has launched The Bubba Army Podcast, which is to be repped by Crossover Media Group Sales. Bubba calls it “a guest-driven podcast that is fresh, current, relevant and that will become a daily destination for folks who want to have a little fun”.

• iHeartRadio and Shondaland Media have announced new podcasts with more on the way. Shondaland Media is founded by award-winning television writer and producer Shonda Rhimes.

Get the free Podnews newsletter for more like this

Get it free

• A new app, Shuffle looks interesting: promising to let you “swipe for the top podcast highlights”. “Thoughtfully minimalistic MVP guided me to magic moment— finding exciting new content—immediately,” claims a review on the website.

• Staticast is a new “simple, static podcast website generator” - if your idea of 'simple’ includes composer, Markdown and a .phar file, that is.

• 1 in 5 creative jobs are expected be lost during this pandemic. Diversity podcast Greater Than 11% is marking 20,000 downloads with a crowdfunding effort to raise £20,000 for small grants for those in need of support.

Thank you to Build A Cast, our latest supporter. Build A Cast contains all the resources, tutorials, gear and guides you need to build, grow and monetise your podcast. They’ve helped us improve our caching strategy to make our site even faster. Be like them

Tips and tricks

• For Podnews, Paul Kondo writes How I make… Podcast Gumbo, including a photo of his “audio production facility”.
• Best podcast microphones in 2020 (WAVVE)

Podcast News - with The John Bartolo Show

In The John Bartolo Show Larry Keane, who is senior vice president, and general counsel, National Shooting Sports Foundation, Inc. (NSSF), the firearm industry’s trade association. He is responsible for NSSF’s legal and government relations. Listen now

Podcasting Essentials has our Editor, James Cridland, as a guest - talking about what the impact of COVID-19 has been on podcasting, and more importantly, what the opportunities are for brands and advertisers in the space right now. He also discusses the latest news, how he produces his own daily podcast and has some bold predictions about the year ahead, apparently.

Our Editor is also on Deadset Podcasting with Josh Liston, mainly talking about radio as well as podcasts - especially the difference between Australia, the UK and the USA.

The Jump is Shirley Manson’s music interview podcast, and returns for a new season, featuring interviews with influential musicians, including Peaches, DJ Shadow, George Clinton, and Brittany Howard. It’s co-produced by Mailchimp Presents and Little Everywhere.

The Syndicate is new today from Cumulus Media’s Westwood One, Imperative Entertainment’s podcast division, and Foxtopus Ink. It’s a true-story podcast that follows a multi-state marijuana drug ring’s rise and fall.

The often forgotten B in the acronym LGBT now has a fresh new voice according to the producers of Bisexual Brunch, a show made by Manchester, UK-based audio company MIM. The first episode includes a discussion on the experience of being ‘black and bi’ with rising Hollywood star David J Cork, who appears in Netflix series ‘The Politician’.

On the heels of a sponsored sci-fi podcast we featured on July 21, the newest podcast from BMW is Play Next, a music discovery podcast with UK radio personality Edith Bowman. “It features full tracks from some of the best breakthrough acts, artist interviews and conversations with people shaping the music industry,” we’re told. Today’s episode will feature Gilles Peterson and Willie J Healey.