Entercom acquires podcast influencer marketplace Podcorn

• Entercom has acquired Podcorn, valuing the company at $22.5m. Entercom, a US radio broadcaster, owns Cadence13 and Pineapple Street Studios. Podcorn gives advertisers access to podcasters. In 2016 Google purchased the founders’ previous company, FameBit, for $36m.

  • Podcorn co-founder Agnes Kozera will be on the Podland podcast tomorrow.

• Playing with the beta, it appears the new Apple Podcasts app will not automatically download new episodes when you follow a new show: bringing it into line with Spotify and Google Podcasts.

  • NB: Since podcasts will now stream by default, this will have a negative impact on your download figures, and that of Apple’s market share - but may open up more revenue from DAI. We think you might warn your clients in advance.

• Podchaser has acquired Podrover and Podcharts. Podrover helps podcasters track their podcast reviews; Podcharts gives podcast chart ranking history. No terms were given.

  
  Sep 1 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Lantigua-Williams & Co have launched The Podcasting, Seriously Awards Fund to support independent QTBIPOC audio producers in submitting high-quality work to media and journalism awards. Working with AIR and Pacific Content, it’s committed to helping more than 200 producer awards submissions.

  
  Sep 1 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• The Podcast Academy has a new logo, and a new website.

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• The Australian Podcast Ranker for February was released. There’s a new #1: Casefile, from Audioboom and represented in the country by ARN’s iHeartPodcast Network Australia.

  • An incomplete ranker, it lists participating publishers only. The country’s largest podcast publisher, the ABC, is still absent.

• A third of all Americans now own a smart speaker, according to Edison Research data. This data is released prior to their Infinite Dial 2021 webinar tomorrow.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Sep 1 2023

• Sonnant, an Australian AI company focused on spoken word discovery in audio, has completed a $750,000 (US $575,000) seed round. Investors include SCA, the Australian broadcaster, who will use it in their new LiSTNR app.

• More than 70 attendees were at PodFest Cairo’s virtual event last weekend.

• Clubhouse has added an option for higher quality audio, and recurring “clubs”. (Just update the app).

• Twitter says it will let people record Twitter Spaces in future. And scheduled Spaces are coming.

• Ned Donovan suggests that The Ambies Nomination List is “embarrassing for the podcasting medium”, adding: “the nomination list is a giant collection of conflicting interests”.

Following up on 'follow’

Yesterday, we revealed that Apple Podcasts will join Stitcher, Spotify and Amazon, and stop using the term 'subscribe’. Instead, the app will use 'follow’. Podnews made 9to5Mac, iMore, Apple Insider, Techmeme, MacRumors and Mashable.

• Matt Deegan suggested the switch from “subscribe” to “follow” might be ahead of a paid subscription option. Christopher Phin from DC Thomson is not enthused at the prospect.
• Blubrry’s Todd Cochrane says “lunacy prevails!”, protesting that “not once in 16 years has a listener asked if subscribing to the show cost money!”
• Tom Webster writes an additional newsletter this week, saying: “Stop using the word ‘Subscribe’ in your call to action immediately.”
• Jamie Perkins writes: “Tom Webster is misinformed. As a regular consumer of YouTube, I hear 'hit that subscribe button’ at the end of nearly every video. Everyone knows it doesn’t mean you have to pay anything. Perhaps the subscribe 'confusion’ only arises in an older generation? (Read: boomers)”
• Steven Goldstein from Amplifi Media says “bravo to Apple on the significant change”, quoting more research from The Infinite Dial 2019, but says it isn’t the last we’ll hear about subscribing to a podcast.

Sep 1 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.
• Speaking in The Feed, Rob Walch says that the word 'subscribe’ is 'an elegant word for a more civilised age’, quoting from Star Wars “A New Hope”. He adds, “kudos to Apple”.

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Want a free ambient music album? Blake Wyland, as American Cyclops, has released his debut album, Tom, Do You Have Anything Sharp On You? - available on his podcast feed - The Tone Mob Podcast - for the next three months before it is available on streaming platforms.

That Gaby Roslin Podcast has a Line of Duty Special with Adrian Dunbar, Vicky McClure, and Martin Compston who play AC-12s finest - Hastings, Kate Fleming and Steve Arnott. Some of stories of pranks while filming have made news stories by themselves.