Podcast listening on the up, says Edison Research

• Edison Research says that podcast listening has rebounded since the slightly disappointing Infinite Dial numbers released earlier this year. Gabriel Soto reports a sizeable increase in younger audiences. He’ll be at Podcast Movement. (So will we!)

• Since records began (in early 2020), the top 3 downloaded podcasts in Triton Digital’s US Podcast Report have been #1 NPR News Now, #2 Crime Junkie, and #3 The Ben Shapiro Show. But according to Triton Digital’s US Podcast Report for June, released yesterday, NPR has been toppled: the new #1 is Cumulus’s Ben Shapiro Show (which is also carried on radio stations across the US). SXM Media remains the #1 podcast network; Triton Digital is owned by iHeartRadio but doesn’t measure them.

• Skye Pillsbury’s The Squeeze weekly newsletter has launched, with a scoop: MPR Axed Peabody-Winning Podcast “In The Dark” Halfway Through Production. It’s a great piece of long-form reporting.

• While yesterday’s IAB #concernedpodcasters document was heavy on the concerns and light on any solutions, we’re reminded of this work for podcast listening using ULIDs, from Dan Benjamin and Dave Jones, which potentially fixes any issues around download analytics. It is a straightforward suggestion to append a random string to the audio request.

• macOS Monterey (12.5) is out. We’d probably recommend making sure that all your critical software works with it before upgrading; but from what we understand, there shouldn’t be too many incompatibility issues.

• Comedian Lewis Black has filed a suit against SXM Media’s Pandora for copyright infringement, claiming that Pandora has failed to pay royalties for using recordings of his work, and that it decided to “infringe now … and deal with the consequences later”. Media lawyer David Oxenford explains how royalties for comedy work, and says that historically, no such royalty has been claimed or collected. Yet.

• A new magazine is to be produced in France: Podcast Magazine should be available in October 2022. It’s unrelated to the similarly-named US title.

• Resound, AI-powered podcast editing software, has raised $1.35m. The software automatically removes ums and ers; you can join the waitlist on the website.

• Auddia has released metrics about their faidr mobile app, which offers live radio stations without the ads. The company also owns Vodacast, an “immersive podcasting” service.

• “Remember that a quality podcast is only half the work, the other half of the work is to get your podcast out there to attract and retain a loyal and engaged audience,” says Pousse, a company in France that grows and markets podcasts.

• The Betoota Advocate reports on an apparent Australian government piece of research that “no podcast ever has earnt a four hour run time”. The story concludes: “Dr Twal states she is not sure when podcasters stopped respecting people’s time but states that if we don’t crack down on podcast dribble the next generation could be forced to live through podcasts that go for up to 10 hours.”

• Thank you to Owen Grover for becoming our latest personal supporter on Patreon. We’re grateful for your support. (Be like Owen, and the other folk at the bottom of our newsletter by supporting us on Patreon).

Moves and hires

• James Parkinson is to start as a Podcast Producer at ARN’s iHeartPodcast Network Australia from Monday; he joins from Lawson Media. “I’m beyond excited to be joining a fantastic team at ARN”, he tweets, adding “Also, a nod to Podnews where I first spotted the job ad. If you want a job in podcasting, it’s become a great resource for new opportunities. And companies that aren’t posting their ads there are probably missing out on great talent.” Thanks!

Tips and tricks

• How to set up a Google alert for your podcast - it’s a handy tip, and one we use rather too much! From The Podcast Host.

Podcast News - with Pushkin Industries

From Pushkin: On her upcoming season of The Happiness Lab, out Sept 6, Dr. Laurie Santos explores myth-busting questions with surprising solutions, such as: What’s wrong with striving for a #NoRegrets life? Why do we make decisions in the heat of the moment that we come to regret later? How come a generation of well-raised young adults are failing to thrive?

Wesley is currently the #1 baseball podcast in the US. A sports-meets-true crime limited series, it’s a story about the remarkable life and tragic death of former Major League Baseball star, Lyman “Wesley” Bostock Jr. It’s FOX Sports’ first-ever episodic podcast.

In Podland this week, Ross Adams from Acast says: “Email has always been part of our marketing strategy at Acast. As a product-led company, we’re constantly testing and learning new things: and we’ve tested it, we’ve learned a huge amount, and we’ve decided to focus on other marketing strategies instead.”

If you like learning about new podcasts in Podnews, you can now get this section as a podcast itself. New Podcast Trailers is available in your favourite RSS podcast app.