On Air Fest celebrates ten years of big moments

• Exclusive: On Air Fest is celebrating ten years of the event by celebrating ten years of big moments that have happened at On Air Fest. The event began in the same year as Podnews, in 2017: The On Air 100 lists a hundred moments that have shaped the event and the industry - including Spotify buying Gimlet and Anchor in 2019, YouTube jumping into podcasting in 2022, Netflix’s first podcast agreement in 2025, and plenty more. More than two thousand people have been involved; the On Air 100 lists many of them, and the On Air studio box light has remained constant throughout the ten years. Tickets for the tenth On Air Fest are on sale today, for 40% off.

• Substack says that “sponsorships will soon be coming to podcasts hosted on Substack”, previewing dynamic ad insertion, paid ad-free episodes, and “you’ll soon be able to tap into third-party sponsorship marketplaces to fill the ad breaks you mark in your episodes”. You can sign up for early access. (We think that Substack means ads, rather than sponsorships - we’ve asked.)

  • Meanwhile, beehiiv seems to have leaked that it’s about to launch podcast ad monetisation next week. We probably shouldn’t mention it until it launches, eh?

• Spotify shared its RADAR Creators program class of 2026. Rather than only promote the biggest podcasts, the company also offers marketing, editorial and promotional support to upcoming podcast creators and fresh voices. The company has chosen a number of podcasters from the US, UK, Australia, Spain, Argentina, France, Brazil and the Philippines.

• Sarah Koenig, famous to millions of podcast listeners with Serial, is back with a new show that started today. METRO with Sarah Koenig brings listeners stories about New York City, and New Yorkers, every week.

• BBC Studios has appointed Ozen.fm to sell advertising for BBC podcasts across Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Argentina … TikTok and iHeart Podcasts announced three new shows … Acast announced a new comedy podcast Places, Dahlingz! promising interviews with Broadway celebrity interviews … and in Colombia, the MDIF has made an investment into Bogotá-based podcast production company La No Ficción. Terms weren’t given; the company is using the investment to expand into Spain.

• Musixmatch Podcasts is to close. The service launched in 2023 from the music metadata company, offering automated transcriptions, chapters and topic extraction for podcasts. Much of the company’s features have been replaced by free AI tools; it’ll close its doors at the end of November.

• Germany’s Podfluencer Awards had an international award this year; and the nominees have just been announced. Fank Gullo, who is nominated, generously writes up the other nominations.

• Daniel J Lewis has added a new tool called Podcast Networking Radar in Podgagement. The tool exposes Apple Podcast’s recommendation network.

• If you’re running PHP for anything - like Wordpress perhaps - then hopefully you’ve updated your PHP installation over the last 24 hours. There are a relatively serious set of security vulnerabilities going round - here, have a… graphical novel explaining them(?) - but you’re best doing the update. (Podnews runs five PHP servers for various things. We’ve updated them all.)

• There’s a free Podcasting for Business Conference planned for Nov 16-17, with speakers like Dave Jackson, Rob Greenlee and Gordon Firemark. It’s virtual, and you can join from anywhere you’d like to be.

• On a personal blog, Adam Bowie writes How To Incentivise Your Audience to Skip Podcast Ads. He recommends too many ad breaks; bad audio mastering; or… encouraging your audience to use Spotify. (That “skip-ahead” button won’t click itself!)

People news - with podnews.net/jobs

• New York Public Radio - the owners of WNYC - has hired Kimberly Watson as Chief Development Officer.
• Shannon Quintana has joined RedCircle as Senior Vice President, Account Management. She joins from Oxford Road, and Veritone One.

Tips and tricks - with Audiencelift

• What are the top ten things that brands shoudn’t do when investing in podcast advertising? The team at Right Side Up have ideas.

Podcast News - with Airwave

With Airwave: The Young Turks is Home of The Progressives. Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian and a host of progressive voices deliver the news and provocative commentary. Whether you are seeking a breakdown of current events, politics and the mainstream media or just a quick laugh, the TYT daily podcast will always keep you informed and entertained.

What does daily pleasure actually do for you? Science rarely asks - but Pleasure People, which launched this week, does. The podcast follows eight participants using a Magic Wand to find out what effect it had on sleep, stress, relationships and more, with insights from educator and researcher Danielle Bezalel, study lead Dr. Candice Hargons and legendary researcher Emily Nagoski, Ph.D. It’s all about pleasure, people.

The Diary of A CEO with Steven Barlett interviews President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He covered topics including the human toll of war, what was found in Bucha, his hardest day, and a response to President Trump’s astonishing diesel deal with Russia.

A new weekly podcast from Prospect magazine, Tell Me Why, launched today with Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor joining the hosts to discuss their new book, End Times Fascism.

Manual Not Included launches today. Episodes will cover relationships, boundaries, and burnout for listeners whose lives look great on paper and still feel confusing. Host Daniela Tempesta, a psychotherapist and recovering overachiever, and her guests will bring psychology-backed insight and humor to the parts of adulthood that never came with instructions.

Podcasts in the wild

Spotted on a NYC subway train by Podnews reader Odile - some simple, straightforward and good advertising from Spotify, promoting Hot Smart Rich (indie/Megaphone); Baby, this is Keke Palmer (Wondery/ART19); House Guest (indie/Scott Evans); Lemme say this (Higher Ground/ART19); The Rewatchables (Spotify’s Ringer/Megaphone). It’s great to see Spotify (market cap $108bn) support creators in this way. In entirely unrelated news, here’s Apple’s market cap; and a guide to buying subway advertising.