Michelle Obama tapes new podcast at SXSW

• Michelle Obama and her brother Craig Robinson appeared on-stage yesterday at SXSW to record a live episode of their newly launched podcast IMO. They appeared at the Austin Convention Center with Dr. Laurie Santos, psychology professor and host of The Happiness Lab. SXSW had a renewed focus on podcasting this year.

• JAR Audio and Sounds Profitable covered The Power of Branded Podcasts in a webinar and a freely downloadable study. 43% of Americans 18+ would likely listen to a podcast about a favourite brand or product, the study says.

• Exclusive: 911 Podcasts has revealed the cast for the second season of sci-fi thriller podcast Cascadia.

• Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, has announced a new podcast with Lemonada Media, “Confessions of a Female Founder”. The series features Meghan having candid chats with female founders and friends who open up about the success, struggles, and never-before-told stories that took many of them from starting a company to selling it. It launches on Apr 8.

• Spotify has removed some podcast episodes by Andrew Tate from its platform. Spotify says the content was removed because it violated its policies, and his content has already been removed by YouTube and TikTok. Tate, a self-described misogynist, faces charges of human trafficking of minors, rape and money laundering - which he denies. He is a long-time friend of Donald Trump Jr, and was allowed to return to the US after the change in administration.

• Goalhanger has announced its first new show of 2025. Journey Through Time is a new history title from the company, uncovering the overlooked, forgotten, and untold sides of history — from hidden stories to new angles on events we thought we knew. It launches on Mar 20.

• Audacy terminated 300 employees last week, it’s emerged.

• Dynamic audio publisher Spooler has released an audio crossword game, called Links. It’s built by the company’s interactive audio publishing platform called Dialog. Spooler is also eperimenting with location-aware audio, and working with a number of automotive brands.

• Pinwheel, a new branded podcast consultancy agency, has launched. It’s a new brand from Audily “designed specifically for chatcasts and interview-driven content”.

• Tom Webster wrote a piece in Sounds Profitable suggesting three focused user benefits for podcast apps, and suggesting that the Podcasting 2.0 approach hasn’t been ‘firmly seated in improving the listener experience’. In response, Matt Medeiros criticised Webster’s commentary, saying that open-source frameworks and tools were “too important to surrender to corporate closed platforms”. He made those comments on, er, a YouTube video.

• Further reading: Ad Results Media covers the podcasting sessions at SXSW … in AdWeek, Oxford Road’s Dan Granger writes about how video podcasts are blurring the lines between audio and social media … Dane Cardiel writes a thought-sparking piece: “There’s a quiet brilliance to the word “podcast” that has given our nascent industry such an advantage within digital media.“

Tips and tricks - with Pod Predictor by Coleman Insights

• Headliner tells us all about Gen Z podcast listeners - what they want and how to reach them. We’d make jokes using the word “skibidi” and “slay”, but we already did that yesterday.

Podcast News - with Airwave

Airwave presents, for your Ambies consideration: The Ten News for [Best News Podcast](https://www.ambies.com/2025-nominees#BestNewsPodcast]. The Ten News podcast is a bite-sized podcast for kids and their adults that explains what’s going on in the world. Each episode explores topics kids care about most including events, sports, science, gaming, pop culture, entertainment, and more!

In The OrganizedPreneur’s Podcast Launchpad this week, you’ll walk through a four-part system to help you streamline your podcasting process: Plan, Produce, Publish, and Promote. If you’ve ever struggled with keeping up with your podcast, felt overwhelmed by editing, or just wished there was a system to make it all easier, this is for you.

QCODE’s science-fiction series A Better Paradise is to be turned into a book, it’s been announced. The novel is planned for publication in Fall 2025, and will be the first release from Houser’s new Absurd Ventures imprint in partnership with Simon & Schuster distribution. It’ll be called A Better Paradise.

In the Podnews Weekly Review this week, we talk with Annalise Nielsen from Pacific Content and Lower Street about using YouTube in podcasts, the power of live shows, and women in the industry. We also cover the week’s news; and the full interview with Annalise drops next Monday.