Ingredients for branded podcast success: JAR rebrands

• Branded podcast company JAR Audio is now JAR Podcast Solutions, a new brand coupled with a new message to marketers, that “podcasts should perform”. Co-founder Roger Nairn is a guest on the Podnews Weekly Review tomorrow.

• Nielsen released The Record: Q2 US audio listening trends. Podcasting accounts for 19% of all ad-supported audio listened-to every day. For 18-34 years-olds, podcasts account for almost a third of all time listening to ad-supported audio .

• Magellan AI says there’s a new biggest podcast advertiser in the US - and it’s not BetterHelp or Amazon. It’s Toyota: the car maker hitting $5.7mn in spend in June.

• A new feature for the RØDECaster Pro II and Pro Duo has been launched - RØDE CallMe. It’s a seamless, low-latency audio connection, allowing users to connect to remote guests. They can use either other RØDECaster units, or a web browser. You’ll need to update your unit to the latest firmware - and ensure it’s registered.

• Deals:

  • Chart-topping true-crime podcast Morbid is moving to SiriusXM. The show shifts on Sep 1 - it’s currently with Wondery, and was with Audioboom until 2022
  • Realm announced a multi-year podcast partnership with Welcome to Night Vale and the Night Vale Presents podcast label
  • Techmeme Ride Home will, from Monday, be called Tech Brew Ride Home - the show, hosted by Brian McCullough, is joining Morning Brew’s growing podcast portfolio
  • Exactly Right Media has added Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation to its network; it was with Podcast One
  • The C-Word is now available everywhere, thanks to Audacy. The show originally launched in May 2019; they’re being re-released, six years later, on open RSS.
  • Keegan and Company has joined ARN’s iHeart Podcast Network Australia. The show, by a former Australian NRL star, was formerly independent; it focuses on the world of mental health and sports.
  • The Dark Finds Podcast has joined The Radcast Network. It was with Acast, and is hosted by writer and psychology-obsessed creator Gary Colton.

• Orbit has published what it calls the Top 100 European Creators Worth Watching. (Of interest, the list is 35% female, 11% mixed, 54% male).

• Radiodays Asia has confirmed its conference in Jakarta, Indonesia, this September. The event includes a workshop day, and a day focusing on podcasting in the region. Podnews’s Editor, James Cridland, will be speaking; you can use code PODNEWS to save on selected tickets.

• Crooked Media has launched its own political conference, Crooked Con. The event, in early November in Washington DC, includes a live taping of Pod Save America.

• Did your podcast appear in the Edison Research Podcast Ranker? You can now claim a pretty badge for your website or thumbnail.

• Last week, YouTube released its ad revenue figures. For Q2/25, it earnt $9.7bn (up 13% year-on-year).

  • As an opinion worth reading, Frank Racioppi wrote an article entitled The Totally Phony, Overhyped, Artificial, Counterfeit YouTube Video Podcasting Revolution, where he suggested that recent comments made by CEO Neal Mohan were “bombastic, nonsensical, absolutely false, and self-congratulatory”. (Does he not like YouTube then?)

Moves and hires

• Matt MacDonald finished up as Chief Product Officer at Acast last month. “I’m more excited about a new thing that I’m working on than I have been about anything in 20 years,” he posts, alongside a holiday photograph in Sicily. Prior to Acast, he was co-founder at RadioPublic, and Chief Product Officer at PRX.

• Nick Harnett, formerly Marketing & PR Director for Acast, is now running marketing and comms company Little Wolf Media, including working with independent podcast production company Audio Always.

Tips and tricks - with Podcast Movement

• You’re probably not using this feature, but chances are your podcast host offers it, and you should be! Tools like Dynamic Content from Buzzsprout (it’s available in most podcast hosting companies) lets you add additional audio right at the beginning or the end of all your shows, and change it up whenever you like.

Podcast News

Like This, Love This is new from The Independent - the latest from the recently-launched Independent Studio. Hosted by Lucie McInerney, guests bring a book, film, podcast and TV series they can’t stop thinking about to the table and talk about them. The first guest is Shabaz Ali.

Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation is now with Exactly Right Media - the show goes beyond the headlines to explore what it really means to get pulled into a high-control group—and how people find their way out. You’ll hear firsthand accounts from survivors of groups like Heaven’s Gate, the Manson Family, NXIVM and more–sharing personal stories of how they got in, how they got out, and everything in between.

The award-winning 5 Random Questions from Danny Brown returns for season 4 today, and in the season opener you’ll hear CEO of podcast collective Multitude, Amanda McLoughlin, in the random question hot seat. Want to know her all-time embarrassing moment? Or her perfect last meal? Or why you better not be rude in a restaurant in front of her? Check out her answers on these and more in this episode!

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