What are your Essential Listens?

• What five podcasts have impacted you the most? Left of Media is creating The Essential Listening Poll - a list of the 100 most influential podcasts of all time to be published in August at Podcast Movement in Dallas: and as a Podnews reader, you’re invited to submit your five shows here. You’ve until the end of this month - please say you’re a Podnews reader when you submit yours.

  • Among our five would be… CNET’s Buzz Out Loud; This Week in Tech; pioneering true-crime show Death in Ice Valley; satirical show The Bugle; and your podcast. Yours. That one you do.

• Kara Swisher (and the business beind Pivot) is the subject of a profile in the New York Times. We learn that Swisher and business partner Scott Galloway turned down a $40mn guaranteed offer, and instead signed a 70% revenue deal with Vox Media that could return $70mn for them to split.

• Spotify has been criticised for listing spam podcasts that operate as links to websites for illegal drugs. Previous industries who have targeted free podcast hosts like Spotify also include book piracy and sex workers. Spotify say they’ve removed them.

• Soundstack has expanded its content delivery network with two new data centres: one in Sydney, Australia; and one in London. “Low latency, fast ad decisioning, and scalable ad stitching are essential for podcasting and streaming success,” says CEO Jon Stephenson.

• Ahead of The Podcast Show London this week, The Sound Boutique has released a set of 16 ready-to-license music packs for podcasters. Each pack comes with edits and full audio stems.

• Podcasts are growing fast in the Arab world, especially in Saudi Arabia, according to a session at the BroadcastPro Summit.

• The founder of Vice, Shane Smith, is returning with a new season of his podcast Shane Smith Has Questions, along with other shows as part of the “Vice News Collective”. Vice will self-produce this season; the last season was produced by Bill Maher’s Club Random Studios,

• The Asia Podcast Awards are now open for entry. It’s the third year of the awards; the winners will be announced at Radiodays Asia in Jakarta, Malaysia.

Moves and hires

• Molly DeMellier has been appointed as Chief Operating Officer of Sundaze PR, the transatlantic public relations agency. Molly was previously Marketing and PR Director at Acast; she joins another former Acaster, CEO and founder Sarah Jackson.

Tips and tricks - with The Podcast Show London

• Podcast Discovery shares “how to get the most from The Podcast Show”, which launches tomorrow.

• Our own additional advice: for the best value, if you’re from North America, don’t just hang with other people from North America, and do not go to any sessions with people from North America. Seriously. You can see them whenever you like. Instead, learn from people you haven’t heard of, rather than that guy from iHeart/NPR again. The best thing is that you can steal their ideas and nobody will know.

• Our other advice: turn up early tomorrow to make sure you see the opening keynote at 9.15am from our Editor, James Cridland.

Podcast News - with Airwave

With Airwave: The British History Podcast - if you want a dry recounting of dates and battles, you’re in the wrong place. This show helps you learn about who these people were and how their desires, fears, and flaws shaped the scope of this island at the edge of the world. And some of those desires are downright scandalous.

In Italiano mit Caterina, a special guest: a professor of philosophy and history, a famous YouTuber with over 1,800 videos published and a loyal audience who love him — Ermanno Ferretti, also known as Scrip. You’ll get to know everything about him and his podcasts.

The Tennis Podcast is to join The Athletic Podcast Network, part of the New York Times. The UK show, which is regularly #1 for tennis shows in Apple charts, was with Acast.

What happened to Eric Robinson? Uinta Triangle is new today from Lemonada Media and KSL Podcasts, the makers of “COLD”. The 9-part series retraces the global journeys of hiker Eric Robinson, which culminated in his mysterious disappearance in Utah’s remote High Uintas Wilderness. Part investigation, part adventure journal, part human drama, it’s a story about the lengths people will go to find answers about their loved ones.

Where There’s A Will, There’s A Wake is back for a new season today - with a new host. Mel Giedroyc is the new Mortician-in-Chief for the show, where celebrity guests bring their deaths to life as they plan their final day, from dawn to dusk and into the afterlife. It’s from Sony Music.