Pandora's public podcast plans; Anchor's actual acquisition amount?

• Pandora’s plans for podcasting are explained in this conference session video from AdWeek’s BrandWeek with Alex White, who’s VP of Content and Programming for Pandora. He says Pandora earns three times more ad revenue than the entire podcasting industry.

• How much did Spotify pay for Anchor? Spotify’s filing with the SEC says (right at the bottom) that “the Group entered into agreements to acquire Gimlet Media Inc. and Anchor FM Inc. for purchase consideration totalling approximately €300 million, primarily in cash.” That’s US $338m; so if Gimlet went for $230m, as Nick Quah reported, then Anchor looks like it went for $100m.

  
  Aug 10 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• New podcast host Podcast.‌co has launched in beta. The company is based in Manchester, UK, and already operates radio cloud playout services.

• It’s been 100 days since US companies PRX and PRI merged. CEO Kerri Hoffman looks back; and also looks forward to the next year or so in podcasting and audio.

  • Still in the world of public media, here’s how NPR and WBUR deal with advertising on podcasts.

• RadioPublic’s Paid Listens program has now been around for a whole year. The company has posted a review of the first twelve months. They say they’ve paid out “thousands of dollars” to podcasters.

  • Meanwhile, they launched a new tool, called Podsites, this week: it’s a simple way of getting a decent website for your podcast. Paid plans include your own domain name.

• Ira Glass and Alex Blumberg were interviewed on the BBC’s Podcast Radio Hour this morning - about Spotify, but also other things.

• Podyssey has added a new “discover” feature, to “help you discover new podcasts and episodes tailored to your interests”. It also shows you what your friends are listening to.

  • iHeartRadio is also working on better discovery, and is using peoples’ music choices and favourite radio stations to match them with podcasts they might want to enjoy listening to. There are 25,000 podcasts on iHeartRadio, says the company. This one’s good.

• Event: a live fiction podcast recording for Dem Times, in Streatham, London UK on 15 March.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 10 2023

• Advice: The value of user feedback (Sebastien Couture); why advertising on your podcast is rarely a good idea (Jon Moore).

Podcasts

Should this exist? is a new podcast hosted by Flickr inventr Caterina Fake. It seeks to answer the question of our times: How is technology impacting our humanity? (WaitWhat / Quartz / ART19)

One of the hosts of Fantasy Football Hangover contacts Podnews in the hopes we’ll cover his light-hearted podcast - which delves into the world of Fantasy Premier League (which apparently over 5 million people play worldwide). He starts his email asking if it can “feature on the HotPod”: so loses the game instantly. (Audioboom)

The Australian has launched Who The Hell Is Hamish?, a podcast series about a jailed swindler. The newspaper published the very popular Teacher’s Pet last year, which led to an arrest; however lawyers for Chris Dawson - who were in court today - claimed that the podcast may have contaminated the chance of a fair trial.

Thank you

• Thank you to RADIO.‌COM for becoming our latest silver supporter. Owned by broadcaster Entercom, it includes podcasts, too - including yours, perhaps: we’ve added the link in our article that says where to add your podcast.
• Thank you also to Jack Rhysider, Adam Spencer, Lieven Heeremans and De Radio Podcast for your kind personal support. You helped me build a much nicer audio player for our podcast pages, including variable speed and skip.
• If you’re a personal supporter, email us with your mailing address, and we’ll get a few exclusive Podnews laptop stickers in the post. If you’re not a personal supporter, become one.