The Golden Lobes return for 2026

• UK comedy podcast awards The Golden Lobes are open for entries. In 2025, winners included both solo creators and global platforms; the awards now have a wider number of categories (including a 'Best International Show’ for shows made outside the UK), and the prize isn’t just a trophy, but £5000 worth of prizes.

• Sony Playstation has been awarded a patent to use AI to present podcasts from game characters. Here’s the patent in full. The podcasts would be personalised, and not available via RSS.

• YouTube has removed a number of “AI slop” channels from its platform. It’s removed sixteen channels, which had a total of 4.7 billion views.

• When should you end a podcast? When is a podcast “done”? Nick Korte writes a personal blog about why he’s recently chosen to close the Nerd Journey Podcast.

• New York Public Media, the owner of WNYC Studios, has a new CEO. Christy Tanner starts immediately as President and CEO; the former CEO, LaFontaine E. Oliver, becomes Executive Chair.

• As podcasts get more visual, so do the offerings to advertisers. For The Love Of Rugby will see the show’s studio rebranded as the “Tesco Whoosh Studio”, after a supermarket rapid delivery service. It’s said to be equivalent to a naming rights model for sports stadiums.

• One of Australia’s biggest shows, Better Than Yesterday with Osher Günsberg, has joined NOVA Podcasts. The show launched in 2013, and was with Acast.

Thank you to Libsyn, which becomes our latest gold supporter today. Where ambitious podcasts take off, Libsyn offers everything you need to grow your audience and monetise your podcast. Companies like Libsyn help keep Podnews free for everyone: but, as might be obvious, supporters don’t get any special treatment from our independent journalism. That’s why we’re especially grateful for their support; and you, too, can become a supporter here.

Enter The Webbys. Create Your Mark in Internet History.

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Enter The Webbys. Create Your Mark in Internet History.Since 1996, The Webby Awards has been recognized as the preeminent international honor for Internet excellence. Last year’s Webby Awards received nearly 13,000 entries from around the world.

By participating in The Webbys, you place your work on the same stage as boundary-pushing talent, like past Webby Winners: Audible, iHeart Podcasts, PRX, The New York Times, Paper Kite Podcasts, Crooked Media, The Washington Post, Lemonada Media, Dateline NBC, and Vox Media to name a few.

New this year: Expanded offerings in Podcasts, including Best New Podcast, Best Video Podcast, Best Video Podcast Host, Interview or Talk Show – Entertainment & Culture, and Interview or Talk Show – News, Business & Society. New Creator honors now also include Podcast Creators, further spotlighting the voices and stories shaping today’s digital culture.

Don’t miss your last chance! Enter the 30th Annual Webby Awards by the Extended Entry Deadline THIS FRIDAY, February 6th, 2026.

Podcast News - with Airwave

New with Airwave: With Dave Asprey, The Human Upgrade explores cutting-edge science, advanced technology, and proven biohacks to help you upgrade your energy, focus, metabolism, and resilience. This isn’t just self-improvement - it’s human enhancement backed by data.

Gamut’s American Nightmares has returned for a new season: one it calls the most unsettling yet. Set in Ogden, Utah, the season traces the rise and collapse of the Zion Society, a secretive group embedded in a pristine neighborhood of manicured lawns and flower gardens. Beneath the surface was a system built on control, manipulation and abuse, centered around an unlikely leader: Arvin Shreeve, a soft-spoken landscaper who hid predation behind faith and community.

In Podcasting An Institute, you’ll hear Hendel Leiva think out loud about building an Audio × Democracy Institute from scratch—no grant, no blueprint, no behind-the-scenes smoothing. As a listener, you’re dropped into real conversations sparked by podcast conferences, documentaries, late-night work shifts, and years inside nonprofit media, where questions about power, monetization, institutional risk, and influence are usually avoided or abstracted away. You’ll hear the messy middle: how ideas form, where they break, and what it actually sounds like when someone stops waiting for permission and tries to build civic media infrastructure in public, one conversation at a time.

Parents Uncharted: From The Creator of Mom Uncharted is brand new - a podcast about what it means to raise kids in a world evolving faster than any generation before. We’ll dig into the realities of parenting Generation Alpha: screen time, social media, mental health, and finding hope amid anxiety-inducing headlines. If you’ve ever wondered how to raise resilient, grounded, future-ready kids in an online world- this podcast is for you.

Two-Faced: John of God is the first Spanish-language podcast from Exactly Right and Adonde Media. Hosted by award-winning journalist Martina Castro, this investigative podcast examines the rise and fall of João Teixeira de Faria - the Brazilian spiritual healer known globally as John of God. It examines the reach of global faith healing movements, the power of belief and just how far we will go before we question it all. You can find this show in Spanish by searching for “Dos Caras: Juan de Dios”.