Comedy is #1 in podcasting

• Comedy is the #1 podcast genre in the US, according to Edison Podcast Metrics. The data is for the 12 months ending June 30: news is #2. The top 5 were unchanged.

• Anchor was still the #1 podcast host in August, according to new data from John Spurlock’s Livewire, but the company’s share of new episodes continues to fall from a high in April. Meanwhile, Buzzsprout increased its share significantly, from 7.9% to 9.0%: the highest share for six months. There were 1.6m new podcast episodes published in August, up 5.4% from July.

• Brian Baumgartner talks in Marketing Brew about how he approaches podcast host-read advertising.

• Digiday looks into paid subscriptions for podcasting. The article interviews QCode, Tenderfoot, NPR and Acast+.

• Eddy, Headliner’s audio editor, has been updated to improve the detection and capture of “ums”, “ahs”, and other filler words.

• Kids podcast company Wonkybot has signed with talent agency CAA. The company is making a movie of Tara Tremendous.

• Podcast publisher Lemonada Media has partnered with Penguin Random House to launch a book club.

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Moves and hires - with Podjobs.net

• Elizabeth Nonemaker has been hired as Executive Producer for Podcasting at WQXR, the classical radio station owned by NYPR, which also owns WNYC.

• Kyle Fulton has joined the Globe and Mail as Podcast Producer. (Almost: at the time of writing, he’s getting ready for his first day.)

Tips and tricks

• HeadStuff tells us how to promote your podcast. Partnering with other shows is one trick.

• The Podcast Host claims that new research has revealed “the perfect podcast artwork”. Reporting on work done in the Netherlands which Podnews reported on earlier, the article also links to artwork resources.

Podcast News

In French, HASTINGS ! is a history podcast about Normandy and England - which, for twenty years, were both ruled by William the Conqueror after the Battle of Hastings in 1066 (the last successful invasion of the country). The show reaches more than 40,000 listeners; and the host, Serge Van Den Broucke, is a recent new subscriber to Podnews.

Reviews are in for The News Agents, and The Week links to some of them. One such miserable review: “I would have switched off after 11 minutes had I not been contractually obliged to listen.” We quite liked it.

Unsurprisingly, The Teacher’s Pet is to be made into a movie. Hedley Thomas has signed a deal with Blumhouse, Jason Blum’s US production company. The show has been downloaded 60m times, and Chris Dawson was found guilty earlier this week of the murder of his wife, an investigation spurred on by the podcast.

The Fourcast, the Channel 4 News podcast, returns from Friday Sep 9. Hosted by Kiran Moodley and Minnie Stephenson, an eight-part series will start with a look into the Republican party in the US. The show will also be available in video.