Pandora launches 'Stories'; ART19's raid on Stitcher

• Pandora is launching Pandora Stories, that combines music and the spoken word in a “new format”, according to TechCrunch: playing music and talking inbetween - eerily reminiscent of music radio.

• Podcast host ART19 has hired two executives from Stitcher as part of an expansion plan. Korri Kolesa is the company’s new COO, and Lex Friedman is joining as Chief Revenue Officer. The company is planning new advertising products.

• Cadence13 is switching podcast host to Megaphone by Panoply; they previously used ART19. In HotPod, Nick Quah suspects this is a sign of a hosting shakeup to come.

• Event: Oorzaken Festival in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 29-31 March. Speakers include Scott Carrier ( Home of the Brave, This American Life ) and Chenjerai Kumanyika ( Uncivil, Seeing White ); and there’s an industry day.

• Google Assistant’s voices are getting an upgrade in most countries. You can go and listen to the new, higher quality voices on the Google developer website, and learn more at Wavenet's website.

• Edison Research has given a sneak preview of one slide of their Infinite Dial data release next week. “This year, for the first time ever, half of the population uses YouTube as a music service every week,” they say. You can register for the free webinar.

• Audioboom has raised a futher £1.5m (US$2m) in funding. £600,000 of this is from Nick Candy’s Candy Ventures, which controls 19.5% of the company. The money will be used for new content acquisitions.

• If you have a desperate need to watch podcast companies pitch their shows to advertisers, you can watch the videos from last week’s Winter Podcast Upfront sessions. Registration is free. There’s also a keynote from Tom Webster to watch, too.

• Crossover Media Group is now representing Dr Laura’s Call Of The Day, the company has announced. Dr Laura Schlessinger is a US talk show host, and this podcast is already downloaded more than two million times a month.

Podcasts

How to be less awkward, a podcast from Laura Merli and a guest, generally a fellow comedian, revealing their most awkward encounters, is back for a new series. The description tells us it’s “cringeworthy, heartwarming, and hilarious”. (Libsyn)

The Monster Hunters returns for a new season today. An adventure-comedy podcast with a full cast, one of the characters is called Sir Maxwell House, which reminds us to go and put the kettle on. (Acast)

TheSkimm, a US news website, is to launch a daily news podcast. Released for the afternoon commute, it will focus on four stories. Skimm This will launch on March 4th, and claims it is a nonpartisan news source that only delivers facts, not opinions. (Megaphone)

Former radio hosts Hamish and Andy returns with their podcast “this March Eve”. We assume that means tomorrow. There’s an understated video promo over here. (PodcastOne)