Michelle Obama to release show on Spotify

• Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground production company is launching The Michelle Obama Podcast on Jul 29. It’s another exclusive show to Spotify.

• That new 'exclusive’ Apple News Today podcast, that we reported on yesterday? It has an RSS feed after all, and has been added to some podcast apps, including Overcast (via a 'hack’, says Marco Arment, though apparently the feed address is visible in iTunes desktop software). However, the RSS feed is hidden from third parties in Apple’s API and its mirror URL has also been disabled: so the intention appears to be that it’s an exclusive, and The Verge described it as such.

  • Podnews discovered in May that many Radio France podcasts also withhold their RSS feed address if you use the Apple API. At the time, Apple declined to confirm this or comment on how this was achieved.
  • Dan Misener notes that Apple is self-hosting the audio (other Apple shows are hosted by ART19). Evo Terra suggests this could be the beginning of the end of the RSS feed, and possibly podcasts hosts too, comparing it to the ebook market.

• Apple is hiring for US & Canada Editor, Apple Podcasts.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 25 2023

• Distribution: Libsyn has announced a new distribution agreement with Gaana, an Indian music, podcasts and video service with 150m monthly active users. Entercom’s RADIO·COM has a new distribution agreement with Twitch, which initially will bring live radio programming to Twitch’s video streaming platform. Omnicast Media’s Something You Should Know has joined Westwood One: the podcast was formerly signed to DAX.

  
  Aug 25 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Captivate has announced an agreement with SongsforPodcasters to allow podcasters to licence songs from independent musicians. (Podnews’s Editor is an advisor to Captivate).

  
  Aug 25 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Radiodays Africa had a session about podcasting. You can read up on the topics discussed, or watch the whole thing.

• For Soccer Ventures has launched a podcast network and plans to spend ‘six figures’ in growing shows. It’s also partnered with the Girls Soccer Network.

• Following on from its launch of secure podcast distribution yesterday, Omny Studio has posted an in-depth blog piece about private, premium and secure podcast feeds.

• The School of Podcasting’s Dave Jackson has updated his big list of podcasts about podcasts. We hope he does a podcast about it, and entitles it “The Podcast about the list of podcasts about podcasts Podcast”.

Tips and tricks - with Podcorn

• What are the best business models for podcasts? (Backtracks)
• How much money should I spend to promote my podcast? (Pacific Content)
• Podthon’20 is on this weekend (our Editor is one of the speakers), and there are four free podcasting virtual events next week for you to take part in. Details over at Podevents.

Podcast News

Entrepreneur John Roa has launched The John Roa Show. Roa sold his former company to Salesforce in 2015. In his first episode, he’s interviewed by Jordan Harbinger.

Jury Duty: The Trial of Robert Durst “changes the game for true crime podcasts”, according to Crime Story Media. The podcast launched earlier this week and is to follow the trial of billionaire Robert Durst as it happens.