Google Podcasts to close in 2024

• Google Podcasts is to close, the company has announced. The news confirms Podnews’s coverage in August that YouTube Music will allow you to add any RSS feed to the app, so you can continue to listen to your favourite shows in YouTube Music as a replacement. The company is working on a migration tool. They’ve also communicated the upcoming closure to listeners.

  • Google Podcasts will close “later in 2024”; it launched in June 2018. The player was in all Android phones, but it wasn’t always installed as a separate app. The founder, Zack Reneau-Wedeen, left in Sept 2021; the app only achieved a lower than 5% market share in downloads. It was the third attempt by Google at a podcast player; the first, a 20%-time project Google Listen app was based on Google Reader; then there was a US-only launch of podcasts within Google Play Music, which cached audio. Their fourth attempt, YouTube Music, still has yet to add podcasts in many countries.

• As pre-announced in June, Apple Podcasts has launched a tool to connect third-party app subscriptions to exclusive podcast content. If you’re a subscriber to, say, the Lingokids or Calm apps, you’ll automatically find exclusive subscriber-only shows in your Apple Podcasts library.

• British podcast network Noiser has achieved over 13 million monthly downloads for the first time since launching in 2020. It’s doubled in size in the last 18 months: in part due to the success of Real Survival Stories and the company’s recent partnership with BBC Sounds. The company is a self-funded indie, run by Pascal Hughes.

• Announced on the same day as Spotify’s AI translations, Wondercraft AI also launched an AI dubbing tool. Unlike Spotify’s pilot, the Wondercraft tool is available to all podcasts in thirteen different languages. Here’s our own daily podcast, dubbed into Spanish.

• Alitu has launched text-based editing, allowing podcasters to edit their audio as effortlessly as they would with text in a document. It’s part of Alitu’s full podcast workflow toolset.

• Podcast producer Evergreen Podcasts announced a strategic partnership with adtech company Sounder.

• Got an amazing ten-minute piece of audio “that emphasizes sonic experimentation and pushes the boundaries of audio storytelling”? OnAir Fest is looking for your content. You’ve a week left to enter.

• New Zealand radio station Newstalk ZB has launched a subscription platform ZB Plus, featuring written content from a variety of journalists. The station’s podcasts achieve 540,000 downloads a month.

• Liberty Media and SiriusXM are planning a merger. Liberty owns 83% of the company.

People News

• At KQED, Ernesto Aguilar is now Executive Director of Radio Programming and Content DEI. He says: “In addition to the exciting broadcasts we do, I’ll also now oversee diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the Content division.”

Podcast News - with Airwave

Part of the Airwave podcast network: Fast Company Daily promises stories, tips, and advice on how employees, managers, and businesses are working smarter, all from Fast Company and all in less than five minutes each weekday.

After Adam Curry told them off for only publishing their conversations with podcasters on YouTube, rather than - um - a podcast, Buzzsprout Conversations has been launched by the podcast host as an actual podcast. The show lets you learn from podcasters about their success.

In Retrospect with Susie Banikarim and Jessica Bennett is new from iHeart, wondering if there’s a cultural moment from your past that looks different in retrospect. Every week, the hosts revisit a pop culture moment from the 80s and 90s that shaped them — to try to understand what it taught us about the world, and a woman’s place in it. It launched last week.

Podcast promotion in the wild

This mental health reality documentary podcast is getting promoted in Melbourne Central, an upscale shopping centre in the Victorian capital in Australia. The ad for the Headline Productions show We Are Lonely contains clear podcast messaging, including promotion for Spotify and Apple Podcasts; and a mention of the sponsor, the health insurer Medibank.