Google opens News on Google Assistant to all; and questions with Panoply's CEO

• Google have opened-up their “News on Google Assistant” developer information, which includes details on how to enable appearance on the Google equivalent of the Daily News Briefing. Before this week, you had to send a cheeky email to someone you’d met at a conference, who then sent it to someone else you’d met three years ago at a conference, who then suggested a nice man called Gordon, who then manually approved your Google Account in order to be able to see the documentation. (Which is what we did.) Your content will still need editorial approval.

• Last week, we reported than Panoply had suddenly stopped producing new podcasts, focusing instead on its hosting platform, Megaphone. Panoply’s CEO, Brendan Monaghan, answers some of our questions on the announcement: their two new podcasts are still going to be produced, and Megaphone is cleverer than the average podcast host.

• We hear that, yes, Spotify is testing passthrough. According to someone with knowledge of the matter, NPR were the driving force who requested that Spotify no longer cache their podcasts; they’re now beta-testing with a number of podcasters “who are big enough”, and more are in the queue.

• Finding Cleo, a podcast from Canada’s CBC, has won a major award, the broadcaster says in a tweet, at the Third Coast Festival.

• The EU has passed a controversial new copyright law. It includes a so-called “link tax”, a right for publishers to demand payment from links in services like Google News; and an onerous demand for platforms (including podcast hosts, potentially) to check for copyright infringement on upload.

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• Podtrac has published their (US) “top 20 podcasts” for August.

  
  Aug 6 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Lawyer David Oxenford reminds podcasters of the US legal requirement to clearly identify sponsored messages in podcasting.

• The Outlier Podcast Festival (Los Angeles CA, USA) has confirmed Sam Sanders from NPR podcast It’s Been A Minute will be one of the guests.

• The Podnews podcast is now in Deezer.

Opinion

• Perry Michael Simon writes about the “head-spinning” developments in the podcast industry over the past week, including, as he sees it:

  a malaise setting in among the early podcast business adopters who, in some cases, just got tired of waiting for the business to become, you know, a business, with big revenues supporting big staffs.

• Cabana cautions about what they call “junk podcast ads” - and is keen to remind podcasters to consider their audience when accepting advertising.

Podcasts

Many people fall asleep to podcasts: Sleepy is specifically designed to help you do that. Otis Gray tells me “Sleepy is now downloaded in over 50 countries, with downloads increasing by 43% each month.” He also points to lots of grateful listeners, for whom the podcast is a vital part of their sleepytime. Zzzzzz. (Libsyn)
DJ MOBY, a nationally syndicated rock DJ who retired from the radio in 2016 after more than 30 years behind the microphone, is back with the Moby in the morning podcast. It’s released every Monday. (BG Ad Group, Libsyn)