How Italians listen to podcasts

• Data: IPSOS Italia released their Digital Audio Survey last month. 26% of Italians (aged 16-60) listened to podcasts in the last 30 days: that figure compares to 36% in Canada. (Grazie, Digital MDE!)

• The Reuters Institute have published their Journalism, Media, and Technology Trends and Predictions 2020. It points to growth for podcasting beyond the English language; predicts more daily news podcasts; and notes: “Sports outlet The Athletic has noticed that people who engage with one of its podcasts during the free seven-day trial period are much more likely to buy an annual subscription to the site.”

• The Conversation writes about the speedy evolution of podcast and audio storytelling, adding that podcasting - not radio - has quickly become the natural home of audio fiction.

  
  Aug 20 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• One of China’s largest interactive podcast platforms, Lizhi has set a price target for its US IPO next week, and looks set to raise US $61.3m. The company made $116m in 2018, almost reaching profitability (a loss of $1m).

• The Google Podcasts Android App has a new 'account switcher’. You can also switch the podcast app to operate “without an account”, i.e. a kind-of incognito mode that doesn’t save history (and doesn’t let you subscribe).

  • 571 days since the launch of Google Podcasts, the company is still operating Google Play Music Podcasts, a competing but otherwise separate product, with no signposting between the two.

SpotifyWatch

• Walt Mossberg, a respected US tech journalist, says that Spotify’s podcast ad targeting technology (Jan 9) is a planned violation of privacy, adding: “Most podcasts are already narrow enough that sponsors can do a decent job of figuring out where to place their ads. There’s no justification for offering them targeting based on personal information.”

• Spotify is criticised for hosting anti-semitic playlists. The company says it will remove them.

• The company is posting its fourth quarter 2019 financial results on Feb 5.

  
  Aug 20 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

Tips and tricks - with Acast Open

• Dan Misener explains how Pacific Content develops new shows with brands. One of their favourite show development exercises: “This meets that”.

• Resonate Recordings answer the question What Podcast Directories Should I Be On?

Podcasts

Up and Vanished is coming to Oxygen, a US true-crime TV channel. Here’s the trailer: it airs Feb 15 in the US, and presumably will also air on the channel in Australia. (Tenderfoot TV / Megaphone)

Launching simultaneously in the US, Brazil and Mexico, Parcast has released a podcast about secret societies, called Secret Societies. It joins a show about mythology called Mythology, a series about con artists called Con Artists, and episodes about serial killers called Serial Killers. In case you missed it, LaunchPod Media’s John Dinkel says this is not an accident.

The Catch and Kill Podcast, which covers the systems that protect powerful men accused of terrible crimes in Hollywood and beyond, gets a full review from Podcast Review, describing one episode as “38 powerful minutes of podcasting that puts into perspective how precarious these acts were and continue to be”. (Pineapple Street Studios / Megaphone)

A new episode of Tradeoffs details how a promising solution to the US’s skyrocketing healthcare costs -- one that health care executives here have invested years and millions of dollars in -- doesn’t actually work.

Le Profil de L’Emploi is the first podcast from LinkedIn in France, produced by Europe 1 Studio.

Thank you to Hysteria 51, which has joined Podnews as a personal supporter today. It’s a weekly podcast that takes an every-man approach to the World of the Weird. (And it’s in the chart in eleven countries!) (Buzzsprout)