News podcasts grow; Spotify's most popular podcasts; and the company accused of podcasting click-fraud

• The number of news podcasts rose by almost a third (32%) between January and October 2019, according to a new report by the Reuters Institute, released today. “Bigger audiences, better measurement and easier access have combined to change the economics of news podcasting,” says lead author Nic Newman. There’s a free webinar tomorrow (Dec 4) at 2pm. (Podnews’s Editor was interviewed for the report).

• Spotify has released its streaming stats for 2019. Spotify Originals claim three of the top five most-streamed podcasts - the most popular was Spotify Original The Joe Budden Podcast with Rory and Mal, followed by My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, Germany’s Gemischtes Hack and Fest & Flauschig (both Spotify Originals), and The Misfits. The most-streamed podcast genre of 2019 was comedy.

  
  Aug 19 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Maximum Media, the owner of Irish publisher Joe·ie, has been accused of using “clickfarms” to grow the figures for its weekly business podcast The Capital B, which was hosted on SoundCloud. An anonymous video claimed the figures “jumped” by many thousands of plays overnight, and showed evidence that many of its SoundCloud users were fake. Ireland’s largest media agency has suspended its contracts with the company; its founder, Niall McGarry, has now left the Irish business to focus on the company’s business in the UK. Ad agencies are calling for more granular data to help spot click-fraud.

  
  Aug 19 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.
  • We would note Maximum Media is on the IAB’s publisher council in Ireland, yet continues to post its podcasts on SoundCloud - a publisher which is not IAB compliant.

• Apple have also published their “best of the year” lists. Anchor gets a mention in a “app trend of the year” for storytelling; TechRadar reports that they’ve chosen podcasts too: NPR’s White Lies as “best true crime show”, Carrier as “best fiction show”, and 1619 as “best history show”, though we can’t see where.

• Another sign of the audio revolution: audiobooks will outsell e-books in 2020. The data is for the UK, where audiobooks are predicted to make nearly $150m.

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• Business news network CNBC has partnered with Megaphone for podcast hosting and monetisation. The company previously used ART19.

• SoundCloud has announced that everyone can now upload “original lossless HD files” for free. Starting December 9th, their new free upload limit changes from “3 hours of audio” to “3 hours or 15 tracks”.

  • PSA: SoundCloud’s podcast hosting service does not have the new Apple Podcasts categories launched in August, nor the 'new’ Apple iTunes tags from 2017. Its stats are not IAB compliant.

• ListenNotes has added two more graphs to its useful podcast stats page - “dead podcasts by year” (over 30,000 podcasts were deleted or finished in 2018), and “last active podcasts by year” (just over 100,000 active podcasts from last year haven’t published at all in 2019).

• RadioPublic has ended their paid listens program. Launched in Feb 2018, the product offered $20 CPM for listens on the RadioPublic app. By Feb 2019 the company announced it had paid out “thousands of dollars” to podcasters. The company plans to focus on podcaster tools.

• Remote recording tool SquadCast has a new pricing plan from December 16th. For new users, the “Unlimited” $20/month plan will no longer be available; the “Creator” $20/month plan replaces it, with a max of 5 hours recording. Current “Unlimited” users will still get unlimited use.

• Yesterday, we wondered if Apple’s New & Noteworthy was beginning to get stale in Australia. That’s nothing in comparison to their New & Noteworthy section in Flanders, Belgium, which features podcasts from 2013, lectures from 2015, and podcasts in Turkish and Spanish - one promising to guide new students for the 2016-2017 year in a Mexican university.

Tips and tricks - with Acast Open

• What should you do with your podcast over the holidays? Tae Haahr has some thoughts. We’ll be doing option 3.

• Melissa Monte has some ideas on how to raise your podcast’s profile.

Podcast News - with Spreaker Prime

Spreaker Prime: The NBA Podcast is a show hosted by Bryan Toporek and Morten Stig Jensen who spend each episode walking through all of the latest happenings in the NBA, both on and off the court. They’re using Spreaker Prime to earn money and cut their hosting costs.

Podcast Movement Sessions is back for a new season. Dan Franks tells Podnews: “We’ve invested heavily into the production this season, to shed light on some of the most important (and sometimes sensitive and controversial) topics in the space, framed by our Society, Culture and Advocacy track at PM19.” (Ted Woods / Omny Studio)

Starting Greatness offers lessons from startup super performers before they were successful, and features interviews with some of Silicon Valley’s most influential business leaders including Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, Nextdoor co-founder Sarah Leary, and Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Kreiger. It’s hosted by Mike Maples from Floodgate. (Simplecast)