How Gen Z/Millennials use podcasts

• The podcast listening habits of 13-34 year-olds have been highlighted by Team Whistle, a research company in the US and UK. Two-thirds prefer podcasts to books; most prefer unscripted podcasts, and the main characteristic they want their host to have is to be funny.

• Glow has launched Refer-O-Matic, a paid tool to incentivise your listeners to share your show. Here’s the story behind it.

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• Volvo spent $2.1m on podcast advertising in October, according to new data from Magellan AI highlighting advertising increases: the auto maker was promoting a luxury SUV. The top podcast advertisers were Amazon (#3, $2.7m); ZipRecruiter (#2, $3m); and BetterHelp (#1, $3.7m), an online counselling service.

• One for those still wondering how the Apple Podcasts charts work - “I know all the cool kids say it’s ratings and reviews that get you places at Apple Podcasts. But our client (Strength Changes Everything) is currently (and legitimately) at #5 in all of Health and Fitness without a single review” says Paul Colligan. Only one episode so far, too. (We reported about ratings and reviews back on Christmas Day 2019).

• The Tribeca Film Festival has added a new podcast section. For the first time, submissions will open for for fiction and narrative nonfiction podcasts.

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• Amazon Music has quietly launched in Mexico and Brazil. In Mexico, the company has also launched an exclusive podcast, En la sala, hosted by Latin artist Becky G; there’s an original in Brazil, too. (Thanks, Eric!)

• SiriusXM is the New Destination for Original, Exclusive, and Popular Podcasts claims a press release, promoting new podcasts with Marvel Entertainment. (Marvel had a relationship with Stitcher, which we covered in 2018; then they signed with Pandora and SiriusXM in 2019). The company has also announced further exclusives.

• According to Quill’s Ultimate Guide to Branded Podcasts, 2021 will be the biggest podcast year yet - (yay!) - as, with Covid-19 on the rise, advertisers move marketing spend towards podcasting to connect with their customers during lockdowns (oh).

• Experian has bought Tapad for $280m. Attribution company Podsights describes them this way: “A number of providers have sprung up in the last decade offering … massive [databases] of every household IP mapped to identifiers they have seen at that IP. Tapad and Drawbridge are two of the largest.” Acast, AdsWizz, Podsights and Chartable use them among others.

• Triton Digital have released their latest US Podcast Report. Combined, the Top 100 Podcasts by Downloads and Top 100 Podcasts by Users are up 3.6% from the previous reporting period. NPR is the #1 publisher, with NPR News Now the #1 podcast. An incomplete ranker, it measures participating publishers only, and doesn’t measure iHeartMedia.

• It’s no surprise that companies want to buy Wondery, says CEO Hernan Lopez in a piece from Sam Blake in dotLA. The company plans to expand internationally; and Wondery’s audience is bigger now than it was before the pandemic, he says.

• Lydia Polgreen from Gimlet spoke to Recode’s Peter Kafka about Spotify’s plans to get podcasts in front of more of their users.

• CaptionApp has unveiled a podcast search engine. “Find anything in your favorite podcasts” is the promise; though your favourite podcasts need to be one of the 62 podcasts they actually monitor. (We suspect it’s a storefront for the video search company’s technology).

• In Russia, Arzamas has launched a new app with audio content for kids: podcasts, lectures, audiobooks, and more. “We are equally passionate about telescopes and memes, Harry Potter and Ancient Egypt, dinosaurs and My Little Pony,” they say. Гусьгусь is available on iPhone and Android and comes with a free month’s trial.

• The winners of the Australian Podcast Awards will be announced in a live stream tomorrow at 7.30pm AEDT. “Our host, Lucinda 'Froomes’ Price, will lead us through our categories and special awards and we’ll be seeing our 100 nominees in person, live from their homes too. What could possibly go wrong!”

• This newsletter has subscribers all round the world. Nobody has yet asked “Could you put them all on a map to see where they all are?” but we did that anyway. Tere to our four subscribers in Estonia, bula to our one subscriber in Fiji, and halló to four subscribers in Iceland.

Tips and tricks

• Podcast Ratings in 2020: Do they matter? does more research into ratings and reviews and suggests reasons why listeners aren’t rating you. And for some reason, our reviews are in a screenshot. (Given us five stars yet?)

• Setting the Tone: Why your Podcast Music may be Losing you Listeners

Podcast News - with Vurbl

On Vurbl Voices - get to know the co-founders of Vurbl with a behind the scenes launch episode. They talk about why they’re building the platform, developing the team, what they’re excited about most for Vurbl and what creators and listeners can expect from the platform. Listen on Vurbl

Science Vs has been looking at a pandemic. But, this pandemic was in 1971, happened in Cuba, involved pigs, and might have been put there by the CIA.

The Invincibles: Park Assassins is a new true crime series from Ireland, taking listeners back to Dublin in Victorian times, an assassination squad to fight British rule, and the new police force set up to track the culprits.

On The Widow’s Walk was released by Jake Smith, aka The White Buffalo, in April - but the pandemic almost buried it. “I feel like On The Widow’s Walk was almost a lost album. Buried in the pandemic, not being able to tour it,” he says. Where The Buffalo Roams is a new podcast where he revisits the album and looks at its making.

Whatever Happened To? from CuriousCast looks at what happens after the cameras shut off and the reporters walk away. Just because a story disappears from the news doesn’t mean it’s gone, after all. It’s brand new, and launched yesterday.

Whatever Happened To Pizza at McDonald’s? is nothing to with the above podcast. But if you went to PodFest Expo 2019, you’ll know the answer, because right across the street is a McDonald’s that still serves pizza even today.