Acquisition target: Laura Mayer joins ABC Audio’s podcast division

• Just days after Shameless Acquisition Target's RSS feed was bought, its host Laura Mayer has been announced as the new executive producer of Podcast Programming at ABC Audio. She joins from Three Uncanny Four Productions, Stitcher and Slate (where she was Panoply’s first employee).

• Spotify has lost an exclusive podcast. Brené Brown has released the final episodes of Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead after the company didn’t renew a two year deal. Brown paused her podcasts during the controversy about Joe Rogan’s comments earlier in the year; she’s taking a break from podcasting for now.

• A Joe Rogan podcast was edited earlier this week, after Rogan read out a hoax tweet about vaccines. Rogan’s contract is up at the end of this year.

• The Google Podcasts creator program, run with PRX, has closed, says PRX CEO Kerri Hoffman. The program lasted three years, six cohorts, and achieved 14,000 applications from 120+ countries.

• The Google Podcasts app itself got no new feature updates in 2022. A press release announcing a Google-branded podcast forgot the platform existed in February. A YouTube document suggested it might merge into that product; but progress seems to have stalled. The third biggest podcast app, it was responsible for 2.6% of all podcast plays from Buzzsprout in December.

• Audible has debuted a brand new podcast, Undercurrents: Tech, Tyrants, and Us, looking at how tech is affecting our future. It’s produced by Coda Story.

• Discovered on YouTube: Jon Holstead does transcriptions for Rev for eight hours, lured by their promises of earning “up to $1.10 per minute”. But how much did he make, really?

Tips and tricks

• 5 Steps to Setting and Achieving Your Podcast Goals starts with defining what those goals are, says The Podcast Sessions.

• Apple Podcasts talks to Daniel Alarcón about how Radio Ambulante was created in 2012.

Podcast News - with editaudio

From editaudio: Ozarks True Crime A deep-dive into the 1995 Feeney Family murder case in Springfield, Missouri that asks: was Jon Feeney a killer who escaped consequences, or an innocent man suffering unimaginable loss?

Systemic, from Colorado Public Radio, returns for a second season next week, focusing on the public school system. It’s a tale of two school districts in Denver and Colorado Springs that are a short drive from one another, but are adopting very different approaches to thinking about race and equity.

The second season of Truth and Lies from ABC News starts next week - telling the remarkable story of Dan Day, an ordinary man who risked his life to prevent a terror attack that officials believe could have surpassed the death and destruction of the Oklahoma City Bombing.

In this week’s Podnews Weekly Review, James and Sam talk about PRX’s micropayments, and ask if the industry really is in a 'market correction’.

The Magic Hat Podcast is new - it looks at how comedy and magic work together. Recorded in Sacramento CA, it’s hosted by R Scott Edwards, who has spent 40 years in the comedy business; and interviews a variety of guests.