Listener retention to be important in 2025

• More attention to retention will be one of the trends in podcasting in 2025, says the founder of Pod Houston, Ozeal Debastos in his yearly prediction piece for Podnews. He also predicts an audience-centric shift in the forthcoming year.

• In December, total overall podcast downloads on Buzzsprout were down 14% year-on-year. However, we’d not worry; both Spotify and Apple showed increases in download share; and we covered a few days ago that the total number of podcasts being updated is up 2.5% year-on-year. (And, if you’re getting plays on YouTube, or uploading video to Spotify, those plays never get back to your podcast host anyway.)

• From the archives: in February 2021, our Editor wrote a personal blog about “how to get another billion podcast listeners”. It reflects the fact that, while data costs are low for many in Western countries, that isn’t the case in developing countries, particularly South Africa, where at the time mobile data cost 23x the cost of the US. (To download an episode of This American Life on your mobile would have cost you the equivalent of $3.52).

  • An old article here on Podnews compares audio quality at different bitrates and filesizes. Or this page from NPR is a fun quiz. Marc Maron was once a 40kbps MP3 file; many NPR shows were 64kbps. The reason almost everyone uses 128kbps? Dynamic Audio Insertion, DAI. As Acast says: “In order for ads to be stitched into your audio file, the podcast audio files need to match the encoding of the ad audio file, and the ads are encoded at 128kbps MP3.”

• From the archives: While we’re at it (and not at all related to needing a minimum of four stories or the newsletter breaks), should you be making MP3 or AAC files? We didn’t mention DAI in the article, and we probably should, but another reason why AAC files aren’t used much is that neither Spotify or Deezer accept them.

Thank you to Jeremie Mani who has become our latest personal supporter. Jeremie is behind the Podcasthon charity event in March, which you can take part in. Supporters like Jeremie pay for Podnews for everyone - if it’s your new year’s resolution to support journalism, then here’s where you can support us

Tips and tricks - with Pod Predictor by Coleman Insights

• “Contrary to persistent stereotypes, the accounting profession is full of people with interesting careers.” The Journal of Accountancy post Using podcasting to attract accounting talent, highlighting the Journeys of Accountancy podcast.

Podcast News - with Airwave

New on Airwave: Happy Forgetting is an anthology about the racial justice histories we remember, the ones we forget, what we deny and what we bury - and why those stories must be retold. Hosted by journalist Ruxandra Guidi, with stories from Yohance Lacour (You Didn’t See Nothin) and John Biewen (Scene on Radio) and others.

The Binge Crimes: Deadly Fortune is new today, and explores the saga of the Atlanta attorney Tex McIver. On a drive home in 2016, while a family friend was driving the car, Tex shot his wife - who left behind a fortune with no clear recipient. Tex is now set to be released from prison; and guess who might inherit his wife’s fortune and estate? It’s from Sony Music Entertainment.