Google Podcasts adds a front page, and podcast search, to the web

• Google Podcasts now has a front page, with search, on the web. The front page contains personalised results when signed in to your Google account, though it doesn’t currently list your subscribed podcasts.

  • Neat trick - if you pause a podcast on the web version, you can say to a phone or speaker “OK, Google, resume my podcast” and it’ll pick up from where you were.
  • Meantime, YouTube Music is closer to replacing Google Play Music, with testing going on for a cloud locker service. One source for 9to5google suggests this means that Google Play Music will be closed in the second half of 2020. Hopefully, Google Play Music Podcasts won’t still be a thing for much longer.
  • We’ve updated our Google Podcasts FAQ with this news, as well as our page giving advice on getting listed.

• Using the embedded Spotify player on your website has positive results, rather than using the player you’re using now. Dávid Tvrdoň gives us data showing that if you switch the player over to Spotify’s, you get better growth (since it’s much easier for users to follow your podcast).

• YouTube earns $15bn a year, Google has announced.

• Swedish podcast host Podspace have announced new pricing plans: MINI starts at just €1 ($1.10) per month in addition to PRO (which includes full stats, dynamic ad insertion and campaign management). The host is also certified for the Swedish and Norwegian podcast rankers.

• Posta, the “number one podcast producer in Argentina”, has done a deal with airline LATAM to get its podcasts into their in-flight entertainment systems. LATAM is now 20% owned by Delta Airways, who have also added podcasts to their seatbacks.

  
  Aug 21 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.
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• Spotify’s earnings call contained a bunch of interesting comment about their attitude to podcasting, according to Steven Goldstein.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 21 2023

• Spotify is a prison for podcasts, says developer Peter Rukavina, who complains that you cannot export your subscribed list of podcasts out of the service. We checked - you also can’t export them from Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts. (Apple removed the export when retiring iTunes on the Mac).

• We Edit Podcasts has published Top Tools for the New Podcaster: an exhaustive list of excellent tips.

• Google Podcasts Developer Fun Corner: We went digging through the Google Podcasts code, hoping to find a way of finding additional search operators, like searching by publisher, perhaps. We couldn’t find that, but we could find language to help people subscribe to podcasts, so perhaps that functionality is coming soon. However, the Google Podcasts code also contains a hardcoded link to this unstyled test page, called 'A testing podcast from RCB’ that contains someone drumming. This podcast also appears in proper Google Podcasts, and has an RSS feed. Our guess is that this might be Robin Bhaduri's drumming; he is a product manager for Google Podcasts, and was present at Podcast Movement last year. (We assume he’s a better product manager than drummer).

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 21 2023

From the new book Make Noise by Eric Nuzum, available now

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Reader’s letters

James Atkinson notes the new Google Podcasts website, and says: “Search function is impressive - super fast and much more accurate than Apple. (You’d hope they would be good at that though.)”

An anonymous emailer notes our coverage of the Australian Podcast Ranker (story 3, yesterday) “I’m really surprised there’s zero representation from public broadcasters. What’s that about? This chart from the Ranker only makes sense to ad buyers but fails in the key metric of showing how Hamish and Andy line up against say, the Conversation Hour or Late Night Live. It just seems kind of half-assed and disingenuous.” The ABC has said it will be part of the ranker: we understand they are yet to complete the technical work to be included. The ABC Annual Report for 2018-19 says they achieved 201m unique downloads in the year (16.7m a month); Southern Cross Austereo, who own PodcastOne Australia and the Hamish & Andy podcast, claim 150m downloads “in the past 18 months”. This Australian taxpayer would suggest that the sooner we see the ABC in this chart (and in Spotify) the better. (And SBS and the CBAA, come to that). As a note: Podnews is in the podcast ranker, though not visible in the top 100. Subscribe to our podcast.

Steve Clift adds (about story 3, yesterday): “I wonder what the rationale is for not making your daily/hourly news available as a podcast or even on your website if you put it in a smart speaker? Are there any paid deals? Do Amazon and Google play these broadcasters? I can’t figure out what the stations would lose by gaining more listeners to content that is stale within an hour or day?”

The story did post a question about the definition of a podcast; and, from India, Lakshya Datta says that: “Creators, including me, like calling what we make ”podcasts" because we’re all inspired by American podcasting. Distributors - the biggest ones in India being JioSaavn and Gaana - prefer a mix of terms like “podcasts”, “audio-shows”, and “new age radio”. JioSaavn leans more towards “podcasts”, because it’s audience is more metro-cities where people speak English and Hindi. Gaana doesn’t like using “podcasts” much, because their audience is 50% Hindi speaking, so they tell their listeners tune into our “audio-shows” that is basically “new age radio”. Personally, if people ask me what I make I say I make audio-shows, fiction and nonfiction.

Hit reply with your thoughts to anything you see in Podnews (or outside).

Podcast News

For Black History Month, try Following Harriet - a companion podcast to the film Harriet, telling the story of Harriet Tubman, who brought hundreds of slaves to freedom in 19th century America. (Tanner Latham / Simplecast)

US Hispanic broadcaster Univision has launched a companion podcast to Premio Lo Nuestro, the first Latin Music award show of the decade. They’re also adding live video streams on YouTube and Facebook Live. (ART19)