The New York Times experiments with spatial audio

• The New York Times has shared its experiments with spatial audio, which lets you move your head, or your device, to hear the audio recording from different angles. The team has produced a project website with recording tips, mixing details, and distribution information; it uses Dolby Atmos or Mach1.

• First look: Acast has launched a self-serve platform for podcast advertising. The platform allows brands of any size and budget to start advertising for as little as $250.

• First look: Spreaker has launched a programmatic ad quality tool, dubbed MAGDA, which automatically checks ad categories to make sure they’re accurate. It was successfully trialed during the midterm elections by Audioboom. The tool - the Machine Augmented Guard for Dynamic Advertising - is also named after Magda, a programmatic specialist at Spreaker in Barcelona, and the first to work on ad quality control.

• The Blast Mic is a high quality, lossless audio microphone that, they say, lets you go live from anywhere, or record and wirelessly download a WAV to your editor. The company calls it a “professional radio broadcast studio in your hand”, and have given us PODNEWS20 as a 20% discount code if you want one.

• Data: For the first time, a majority of national marketers and media agencies are advertising in podcasts, according to a new study. Cumulus Media And Signal Hill Insights released the Podcast Download - Fall 2022 Report, an in-depth study of podcast listeners and advertisers. Nearly 1-in-3 listeners say they prefer podcasts with video.

• Which shows work on Patreon - and which don’t? Rephonic has calculated the most successful podcasters on the platform, to discover the most popular categories with Patreon subscribers, and where the opportunities are.

• Apple Podcasts announced the winner of the 2022 Apple Podcasts Award: the Slate podcast Slow Burn: Rowe v. Wade was selected by the Apple Podcasts editorial team in the US.

  • Six new episodes, exclusive to Apple Podcasts, of Slow Burn were also announced yesterday, in a pleasing coincidence.

• A number of shows disappeared from Spotify yesterday. It was a bug, which they’ve since rectified.

• Apple says podcasts don’t need email addresses in their RSS feeds any more to combat spam, but the Canadian Podcast Awards is not having it. The removal of email addresses from RSS feeds “isn’t one we agree with, or will support,” the organisation says, adding “we do not have any plans at the moment to support feeds without contact information”. Buzzsprout, Podbean and Canada’s Transistor are among those who have removed email addresses by default from feeds.

• Pushkin Industries is to partner with production company Little Everywhere, will co-produce season 3 of The Dream, and will jointly launch a finance show early next year.

• iHeartMedia is to launch a new slate of comedy podcasts.

• Podnews’s Editor is a personal supporter of EFF, defending digital privacy, free speech, and innovation. This week, all donations will be doubled. Go support them.

Moves and hires

• Josh Yamuder has been announced by Triton Digital as its new Director of Partnerships, Programmatic Marketplace. He was Programmatic Manager at Targetspot and, before that, Programmatic Specialist at Xaxis.

• Australian podcasters Hamish and Andy have signed a multi-year extension with LiSTNR. Their podcast will be played on Hit radio breakfast shows across Australia throughout December.

Tips and tricks - with Blinkist: powerful ideas in fifteen minutes

• What goes into making the Apple Podcasts 2022 Show of the Year? The team from Slate are interviewed by Apple Podcasts.

• Distorted has produced a marketing guide for new podcasters and indies to help get their show out there.

Podcast News - with CBC Podcasts

CBC Podcasts is excited to reveal our first batch of 2023 launches later today…follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook to stay in the loop. Happy Holidays from your friends at CBC Podcasts!

Money with Ben and Pete is a brand new show from Hope 103.2, a Christian radio station in Melbourne VIC, Australia. The show is your weekly pay-off of fun, financial banter. From the World Bank to your wallet, superannuation to stewardship, Ben and Pete lay bare the profit, loss and real balance sheet of wherever money intersects with us all.

New from The E.W. Scripps Company, Verified: Full Disclosure is the story of what happens when US law enforcement officials routinely fail to track dishonest and disreputable police officers, disclose their misconduct in criminal cases and hold them accountable. It launched yesterday, and has produced a public, searchable database of dishonest police officers.