Manipulated: the Top Charts on Apple Podcasts are broken

• In an astonishing video, Twitter user Lime Link posts a video that shows the extent of Apple Podcasts Chart manipulation: it shows a clever way of how to spot the podcasts gaming the system, and how to do it yourself (don’t).

  • We reported this in May, we showed five podcasts in the top ten suspected of manipulating the charts, and people advertising for manipulators. We’ve also seen evidence of people threatening podcasters who don’t use their service with “one star ratings and bad comments”. And where’s Apple?

• Reese Witherspoon and Rooster Teeth are launching a female podcast network. “The Beam” will expand Witherspoon’s “Hello Sunshine” roster of podcasts. The podcasts will be repped by The Roost.

• The Guardian tells the story of My Dad Wrote A… and other podcasts with similar themes.

• CNBC reports that brands are set to double their ad-spend on podcasts.

• Suly is a (French) app designed for podcast discovery. Google Translate tells me it’s an “application that will allow you to discover new podcasts with a disconcerting ease!”

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• AdAge reports that women are driving podcasting growth. According to a study from Westwood One, “time spent with podcasts significantly grew among women, from 4.6 hours per week in 2017 to 5.5 hours per week this year, a 20 percent uptick year-over-year. Time spent among men may be reaching a plateau, however, growing 3 percent to 7.6 per hours per week in 2018.”

• Resonate Recordings, the podcast production service, has revealed a new client portal that’s faster and more secure.

Podcasts

Moonshot is back for a new season. The podcast is now weekly, and is focusing on narrative content around the world’s biggest ideas. Space mining is the first topic - they say “We’re also covering other topics such as using AI in cancer detection and treatment, robots designed to mimic animals, and doing a deep dive on driverless vehicles.” (Lawson Media / ART19)

Politics as Unusual is a new weekly interview podcast from Washington DC media coach Michael Sheehan. The press release describes it as a captivating respite from today’s intense, often polarizing news cycle while still touching on everyone’s favorite topic du jour, politics. (Cadence13 / ART19)

Jobs

• Creative Audio Producer, NY Times, New York NY, USA
• Jobs are free to add to Podnews: updates@podnews.net

Listicles

• 22 Reactions Listening to the New ‘Serial’ Trailer (DiscoverPods)

Your help - for a forthcoming article, we’re interested in podcasts in planes. If you’re on a plane in the next few weeks, please hunt out the podcast section in the in-flight entertainment, and take a snap of the selection for us? We’re interested. Thanks.