Fresh Air Production wins UK production company of the year

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• The winners have been announced for the UK’s Audio Production Awards. The winners are mainly people (not companies or podcasts); Audible’s Hana Walker-Brown won two Gold awards for podcasting. The winner of Production Company of the Year was Fresh Air Production: Neil Cowling told us:

  As a former broadcast production company that now exclusively produces podcasts, we’re enormously proud to have won this for the whole UK audio industry. It shows that the quality being produced in the podcast space lives up to the standards in radio, and that smaller but fast-growing producers like us are now genuinely challenging the established large production groups. The momentum behind independent brand-funded podcasts is the most exciting trend I’ve ever been involved in. Commercial nous and creative flair can indeed live side by side - same talent, same values, just a different market.

• Are podcasts a disaster waiting to happen? asks Jack Seale, a UK newspaper columnist, highlighting plagiarism in podcasting. Mostly not featured: the cesspool of failed ethics from the UK’s newspaper industry, like this.

• Podcasters who wish to look and sound exactly like Joe Rogan now have some technical help to do so, thanks to a new “deepfake” tool that sounds like Rogan and looks like Rogan. Sadly, without Rogan’s talent.

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• The LA Times published the latest in its Audiosphere series, focusing “on the people who are making some of the genre’s most fascinating shows”, including A Date with Dateline, a fan podcast of the NBC show; Mob Queens; Spotify’s Dawn Ostroff; Last Podcast On The Left, and plenty more.

• Agumented podcast company Entale have been busy hiring, and introduce us to their new recruits in London, UK. Part of the announcement: a new production unit, Entale Studios, with Executive Producer Saskia Edwards (credited here as ex-BBC, but also ex 4ZZZ and ABC Brisbane).

  • Podcast recruitment ads are free at Podjobs

• The BBC has been spending money on promoting the second season of Have You Heard George’s Podcast. Ad magazine Campaign shares a TV ad, some outdoor posters, some outdoor projections, and something to do with a telephone box.

• A new podcast app, RePod, “helps you discover, share, and discuss podcast episodes.” It’s specifically built for episodes, not shows.

• TNT is producing a Spanish-language podcast series with Fuera de Series to accompany Vikingos on TNT Spain.

• Got questions for our Editor? Join the WhatPods AMA on December 6, 7.30pm NY time; December 7 10.30am Brisbane time, 11.30am Sydney/Melbourne time. #timezones

  
  Aug 19 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• If you notice your Podnews podcast page going a little out of date, we’ve added an option to flush our cache and make it brand new. This will also add your audio into the analysis queue once more. Find it in really tiny writing at the bottom of your podcast page, and be prepared to do a maths problem.

• Developer’s corner: if you’re using Spotify’s search API for podcasts, using the undocumented type=show parameter, you also appear to require include_external=audio for some reason. Seemingly nothing to do with passthrough, it seems to remove certain podcasts from the results. (You also need to require market=US, which is normally optional.)

Tips and tricks - with Acast Open

• Kara McGuirk-Allison shares her experiences about being a solo podcaster. Lots of tips and advice about how to reach new audiences, and the perils of editing on a cloud-based system.
• Want to be a great podcast interviewee? The Podcast Host has some helpful tips, including one of the most obvious: “turn up”.

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Spreaker Prime: Coffee With Kenobi is your source for Star Wars discussion, analysis, and rhetoric. The weekly podcast explores the mythology of Star Wars from a place of intelligence and humor. They’re using Spreaker Prime to earn money and cut their hosting costs.

BLACK FRIDAY launches today. A scripted podcast by Tycho Newman, it tells the story of a mysterious phenomenon that turns white people into black people. (Stormfire Productions, Libsyn)

Max and Ivan: Fugitives is an on-the-run comedy thriller set across international border, with a large and well-known cast including Adam Buxton and Stephen Mangan. (Storyglass, Acast)

It’s increasingly easy to stay within your 'bubble’ - but Over The Edge seeks, instead, to discuss and understand other peoples’ viewpoints on controversial subjects. Recent episodes focus on immigration and the race for President; future ones will tackle healthcare and illicit drugs. (Anchor)