Inside the AI podcast factory

“I’m releasing 3,000 episodes a week and I have eight people on my team. There’s no way we’re listening to the overwhelming majority of our content before it’s released.”

• Exclusive: This week in the Podnews Weekly Review podcast, we speak with Inception Point AI CEO Jeanine Wright, about her AI-driven podcast company. The company released a show about Charlie Kirk within an hour of his shooting, we learn; and traditional podcast companies are “just not finding sustainable business models”, she says. You’ll find the interview in full, wherever you get your podcasts - it’s sponsored by Buzzsprout.

• Spotify is working on tools to govern the use of AI-generated content - but for music only. Its disclosures feature will be based on an industry standard, and be nuanced in its approach: but will be voluntary by music producers.

• If you’re heading to New York, you (or your clients!) should watch some comedy podcasts on stage between Oct 7-9 as part of the Cheerful Earful Podcast Festival. Tickets are going fast - make sure to grab some.

• What is NPR’s future podcasting strategy? The NPR Public Editor column tells us that “current listeners, and new ones, are at the center”. NPR’s radio revenue has been surpassed by podcast revenue for the last few years.

• Acast show Toni & Ryan posted an appeal on behalf of one of their “TARPer” listeners. You can particularly help if you live in Canada and the US; but also other parts of the world as well.

• YouTube published “four reasons your podcast belongs on YouTube”.

• In the UK, as is legally required, Acast’s UK subsidiary published its accounts for 2024. The company made £55.7mn in the year (up from £53mn the year before). It had 102 employees. It posted a £2.4mn loss.

• A new device from RØDE! A new microphone? A new mixer? No: it’s… a USB hub.

• The winners ceremony for the People’s Choice Podcast Awards will not be taking place as planned this year. The awards were run by Todd Cochrane, who died earlier this month. “While this year’s event must be postponed, our hope is to regroup and bring the awards back in the future, continuing the tradition Todd began and championed for so many years,” a statement on the website says.

• Jordan Harbinger posts about an advertiser who decided to only pay 5% of what was owing - and then wanted to come back for some more. “I’m not naming names. I’ll let you guess.” 👀

• Spotify has published a blog post setting the record straight on Spotify’s terms of use. We’ve seen a few people suggesting that they’re “claiming control of our content” - and that’s absolutely not true; like any platform, they ask for a licence to do things like produce transcripts or re-encode your video to other formats, strictly for the Spotify platform. (If Spotify was doing anything dodgy with our content, we’d say so.)

• The best feedback we’ve seen about ads in the free version of Pocket Casts: “Because of a small ad showing up, I’ve decided to leave Pocket Casts and instead devote myself to a monastery in Northern Tibet to withdraw from society and focus on my spiritual path, truly the only means of avoiding advertisements.”

Tips and tricks

• The Podcast Sessions posts five reasons podcasters should attend events. Oddly, “get a candle with a wooden lid, with Adobe Podcasts branding on it” isn’t one of them.

Podcast News

The Podnews Weekly Review this week talks with Inception Point AI’s Jeanine Wright on how she makes 3,000 podcast episodes a week with just eight people. We’ve a full interview, plus the All Irish Podcast Awards, and AudioAlways.

In the UK, Well Enough is new from The Independent’s Independent Studio. As Wellbeing Editor of The Independent and a veteran journalist in the space, Emilie Lavinia has seen every side of the wellness industry, tried every fad, and chronicled the impact it has on society. She’ll make sense of the wild world of health and wellness, answering the biggest questions and busting myths and misinformation wide open.

Gambling has real-life impact - even in Aotearoa New Zealand. The Bet is new, with first-hand accounts of gambling harm, highlighting deeply personal journeys — as well as the resilience and healing that followed.

Celebrity Trials, the daily crime podcast from Caloroga Shark Media, presents “8 Days of OJ,” a special series marking the thirtieth anniversary of the trial that divided America. The show examines eight months of the “trial of the century” across eight compelling daily episodes, starting today. Each episode dissects one month of the 1995 proceedings, from the Dream Team’s assembly to the stunning verdict that stopped the nation.

Smooch Fest is new - and the ONLY podcast in the world about kissing! It’s a celebration of the most iconic kisses in pop culture, from movies, to television, to history. Hosted by Lena Olson, she’s joined by a guest to discuss a much loved smooch; for example, Nick and Jess’s first kiss in New Girl, NicOlandria’s in Love Island USA, or Bella and Edward’s in Twilight. It’s fun, it’s juicy, and it’s raucous. Mwah!