Google works with PRX; Podcasts disappear in Apple Podcasts

• Google is working with PRX to lead its Google Podcasts creator program. The program “hopes to remove barriers to podcasting, increase the diversity of voices in the industry, and to make sure content is available for all audiences.” You can apply for the first round until November 18.

• Podcasts have been disappearing from Apple Podcasts - kind of. Many publishers are reporting that iTunes, and the Apple Podcasts app, showed no episodes at all for certain podcasts. Subscribers continued getting the episodes, though - with Apple, when you subscribe to a podcast, your app pulls the RSS feed directly from the publisher rather than Apple’s copy. Libsyn report that Apple has fixed it.

• ABC Australia have announced the results of their AU$1m (US$700,000) podcast fund. The program attracted 1,273 submissions.

• Casting Call, a project from Squarespace and Gimlet which we reported on in May, posted their winner yesterday in a live show. The winner was Anna Ladd, who wrote An Exciting Business Opportunity - testing out MLM products and the people who sell them.

• Podcastr, a new Wordpress theme from Sonaar has been launched. It offers an audio player with continuous playback and live visualizer, and it will automatically generate RSS feeds to distribute podcasts to all major platforms.

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• AdsWizz post about new audio advertising formats, including “shakeme”, “second screen”, weather targeting and location-based targeting.

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

• Anchor has unveiled a new tool to help with podcasting: this time, the company have launched a cover art creator, working with Unplash.

• Podcastfestival, the first podcast festival in the Netherlands, was held at the end of last week. All the sessions were recorded, and if you speak Dutch, you’ll find them on the Podcastfestival 2018 podcast feed. Lekker!

• Cabana have announced their podcast stats are now calculated using the IAB v2.0 standard.

• Your help - are you aware of any devices or apps that do not successfully decode AAC files? We’re working on an article about AAC, and we’re curious if you know of any. (Want one to test? Have this AAC-LC 32kbps/22.05kHz file.) We’re trying to answer the question: why shouldn’t you switch to AAC tomorrow?

• Your help 2 - Going on an aeroplane this weekend? Do us a favour, and photograph the podcast section on the in-flight entertainment. We’re collecting some images.

Podcasts

Bughouse Square with Eve Ewing is a fusion of past and present - interviews from the Studs Terkel Radio Archive, put into today’s context by guests like James Baldwin, Shel Silverstein, and Lorraine Hansberry. (WFMT / PRX)

The Wave is a non-partisan behind-the-scenes look at the conversations that Washington reporters and politicians are having amongst themselves right now. (Podglomerate / Megaphone)
• A Stitcher Premium exclusive comes on Oct 11: a scripted podcast created by NY-Times best selling author Zane. The NSFW trailer for the podcast is over here. We’d mention it by name if the corporate email scanners wouldn’t instantly consign us to your spam box.

Listicle

• 7 innovative ways to monetise your podcast (Forbes blogger)

  Thank you to this week’s new subscribers, including excellent folk from Southern Cross Austereo, Ted, NPR, Deezer, Anchor, Bauer Media Sweden, 3FM in the Netherlands, the BBC, Axel Springer and the Huffington Post.