Goalhanger’s podcast success

• UK podcast producer Goalhanger is celebrating record numbers for its shows, with tens of millions of downloads and YouTube views for its politics and football shows. The country has just been through an election and the Euros football championship.

• Erik Wemple of The Washington Post has published Who’d want to watch a podcast anyway? which looks at the growth of YouTube, interviewing Steve McLendon from YouTube, and Pierre Bouvard from Cumulus Media and Westwood One. We learn that YouTube’s success in podcasting was a surprise to the company.

• Auphonic has launched “speaker diarization” in its transcription tool, for single-track productions - allowing the system to correctly detect different speakers. The transcription tool at Apple Podcasts doesn’t have speaker diarization; so this is a good way to supply those.

• iHeartPodcasts and Thoroughbred Studios have announced an agreement for a slate of four historical drama podcasts. (iHeart: PM24 booth 404)

• India is the third-largest consumer market for podcasts, says DW, with a video explaining why podcasts are so popular in India: lifestyle, easy access, and no censorship.

• The Ambies are now open for entry. From The Podcast Academy, the ceremony is in Chicago next March. (PM24 Booth 104)

• In Australia, SBS Audio is welcoming podcast pitches.

• From PodMatch, the Podcasting Industry Report for Independent Podcasters was published for August. The number of active podcasts fell last month by 3.2%; and only 12% of podcasts have reached 50 episodes; but, the report claims industry buzz is high.

• Spotify has changed its mind again, this time over a plan to put song lyrics behind a paywall. They’ll be free for everyone once more.

• Acast’s UK business files its accounts separately; and UK company accounts are public. Acast’s UK turnover for 2023 was £53mn ($67mn, up 6.9%), and the company made a pre-tax loss of £5.8mn ($7.1mn). It had 97 employees.

• If you’re a Pocket Casts lifetime member, your tier is being renamed Pocket Casts Champion, according to the new Android release candidate.

Moves and hires

• John Goforth has been appointed as Vice President / General Manager of Podcasts at Hubbard Radio. He moves from Magellan AI.

• Nick Castner has launched a podcast consulting business, inevitably called PodCastner. It aims to provide tailored consulting services to podcast networks, publishers, and individual productions, helping them grow their audiences and boost revenue.

• Mike Dell has been recognised as Blubrry’s Podcaster of the Month.

Tips and tricks - with Ausha 🚀

• Discover Ausha’s 10 Podcast Metrics to Measure Your Podcast Success.

• For those wondering about audience engagement, read Ausha’s article “How Many Podcast Downloads is Good?

• Free transcripts are even better when they don’t need an internet connection. Learn how to install Whisper.cpp on your Mac (which is what Podnews uses).

Podcast News - with Airwave

With Airwave: Tired: other tech shows. Wired: What’s New with WIRED - the latest in-depth coverage covering the intersection of technology and culture will help you make sense of a world in constant transformation.

Careful what you brag about on a podcast. A recent guest on No Jumper bragged about extorting Instagram users, only to be arrested by the FBI, and is now facing felony charges. “I was pretty baffled that he was willing to divulge so much”, said the host, Adam Grandmaison.

Campo: Uncut & Uncensored is a new podcast from David Campese, a former Australian rugby player. “Outspoken, charismatic and connected”, his first guest is Wales Manager Martyn Williams.

A new season of Secrets We Keep starts today - an exploration of Australia’s biggest corruption scandal when a trusted Australian company funnelled hundreds of millions of dollars to dictator Saddam Hussein in the lead-up to the Iraq War. The scandal, which unfolded in the early 2000s, revealed a complex web of corruption and deceit involving the United Nations’ oil-for-food program in Iraq.

How much has changed in women’s gymnastics in the past decade and why have so many long-standing notions been challenged? Blind Landing is in the middle of a new season about gymnastics at the Paris Olympics. Leaning into social media for this season with video explainers and podcast clips, the podcast has quickly become the leading source of information about gymnastics at the event.