Lateral comedy panel game grows

• Lateral, a comedy panel game podcast hosted by YouTuber Tom Scott, about weird questions with wonderful answers, has posted its 100th episode (with guests from No Such Thing As A Fish). The show is live on stage for the first time next month; and the podcast releases a book with Pan Macmillan in early November.

• Sport Social has scored three more official football club podcasts - shows for Stoke City, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Aston Villa join over 500 podcasts hosted by the network.

• The New York Radio Festivals 2025 Radio Awards are open for entries, with a number of podcast categories. You have until Jan 31 to enter.

• Popular Mac OS RSS reader, Reeder, now has full support for podcasts in a rewrite.

• Shure has released the MV6 gaming microphone. It’s a dynamic, USB-C connected microphone (with a stand); its software offers auto-level and a “popper stopper”, but no compression or complex EQ.

• The British Podcast Awards has announced the final shortlist for the Listeners’ Choice Award this year, after polls closed. The final six are: Help I sexted my boss (AudioAlways, Acast), Sh**ged Married Annoyed (Acast), Sherlock & Co. (Goalhanger), ShxtsNGigs (Acast), Staying Relevant (Insanity/Bauer/Acast), The Socially Distant Sports Bar (Nata Media/Wondery).

• Auddia has added two new features to its radio and podcast player, faidr. It now has visualised chapters (“shows the user where segment breaks are in the episode within the progress bar of the player”), and another feature called Forward+ (“allows a user to skip forward to the end of the segment being played with a single touch”). These features are available in most podcast players, but requires creators to manually add these chapters when publishing. The app also has a paid ad-skipping function.

• In a masterful tease, Jeremy Enns of the Scrappy Podcasting Newsletter suggests that a small tweak of podcast artwork more than doubled its downloads. One reason might be that they replaced the word “podcast” in the graphic, perhaps… because you shouldn’t do that, we reckon.

• Ashley Carman writes about long podcasts - those that last hours. Apparently, people like them; though “it seems likely that many listeners and viewers are keeping these programs on largely in the background, only intensely tuning in during peak moments of interest.” A bit like radio, perhaps.

• Ever wonder when podcasting got its name? Dave Winer says it was on Sept 22, 2004, and has published this exhaustive timeline. We’ve also covered this in the past.

• What was “going quiet”? We’re still working on that story.

People News

• At PAVE Studios, Kerri Kolen has been announced as Vice President of PAVE Publishing House, the company’s print and audiobook publishing venture. She joins from Pushkin Industries and Audible.

• Audible has promoted Lee Jarit to Global Head of Publisher and Partner Relations. He will will oversee Audible’s global content acquisition strategy with respect to publisher partnerships and independent creator relationships. He’s been with the company for ten years.

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Podcast News

In the Podnews Weekly Review this week, we talk to Music Radio Creative’s Mike Russell about the role of AI in podcasting; Dustin Bluck about the Castro app; and Russell Harrower about the Podfund to help podcast app developers.

The Weeniecast - a show for ADHD entrepreneurs and neurodivergent business owners - is celebrating 100 episodes by calling out a well-trodden neurotypical ‘hack’ for its ineffectiveness for ADHD people. The show is executive produced by Podknows Podcasting.

True crime podcast Small Town Forgotten has led to an arrest after 35 years. The show included an investigation by twin sisters Andrea Lynn and Angela Williams, looking into the death of their father. The podcast convinced investigators to work again on the case, we’re told.

Talk Tuah with Haliey Welch is brand new from the internet-famous “Hawk Tuah” girl. Welch is famous for saying one sentence, which Wikipedia describes as “an apparent onomatopoeia for expectoration”. We also learn that she used to work for a company that used to make mattress springs, because of course she did. It’s quite a good name, though, we’ve got to Hand It Tuah.

Diggnation is back! One of the most famous podcasts from 2005-2011, it’s hosted on Transistor; co-founder of Transistor, Justin Jackson, says it’s hard to overstate Diggnation’s impact on the podcasting world.

Storming the Field is new today from FOX Weather - it’s on TV between 11-11.30pm ET as well as being a podcast. Featuring FOX Weather’s exclusive Risk of Weather Impact (ROWI) forecast, FOX Weather meteorologists Ian Oliver and Steve Bender will break down how the weather will affect each week’s top NFL games and players.

Autocracy in America is new today from The Atlantic. “There are authoritarian tactics already at work in the United States. To root them out, you have to know where to look.” The first episode, “Start With A Lie”, is out now.