iHeartRadio launches a third all-podcast station

• iHeartRadio have launched a third all-podcast radio station. Listeners in Erie PA will find the iHeartRadio Podcast Channel on WLTM, 95.9 FM. It joins Allentown-Bethlehem PA’s WSAN 1470 AM, and Albuquerque NM, KABQ 1350 AM. It’s the first podcast station to make it to FM in the US, reports iHeartRadio-owned Inside Radio.

• Gaana, an Indian music streaming service, is planning a portfolio of 3,000 podcasts by March 2020. They hope for 10 crore (100,000,000) monthly listens. Meanwhile, Scroll reports on a surge in the popularity of podcasts in India. A 2011 census showed that 10% of people in India - 125m - speak English, making it the second-largest English-speaking country in the world.

• In France, Majelan, a subscription podcast platform, has raised another €6m (US$6.7m) in funding.

  
  Aug 19 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Richard Davies writes how indie podcasters can survive the tsunami of bigness in 2020. There are, he says, “fresh opportunities for new, young, diverse voices.”

• An interesting piece in Medium from UX designer Jordan Buckhalt, on designing a podcast app. (We can’t see whether the final app was launched, though.)

• “Podcast hobbyists will experience 2020 as the year of reckoning. While some will be happy to produce an episode whenever they can find the time, others will leave full-time jobs and risk it all in podcasting,” says Juleyka Lantigua-Williams in Niemen Lab.

  • Meanwhile, Karthik Vijayakumar makes his podcast industry predictions for 2020.

• An online event, Jan 24-26: The Mass Media Podcast Summit

Podcast News - with Spreaker Prime

Spreaker Prime: Florida Men is the official podcast of the Florida Man. Each week the hosts share stories from the shady side of the Sunshine State, starring America’s most prolific criminal. Part true crime, part comedy, all weird. This show is about the kind of stuff that only happens in the state where everybody is crazy from the heat. They’re using Spreaker Prime to host for free and make more money.

My mate bought a toaster looks through someone’s Amazon purchase history to find out more about them. The co-hosts, Tom Price and Samantha Baines, are currently discovering more about their own buying habits. (Great Big Owl / Acast)