Fi Glover and Jane Garvey to speak at Podcast Day 24

• After announcing a move to Times Radio earlier this week, podcast and radio presenters Jane Garvey and Fi Glover have been confirmed as speakers for next Tuesday’s Podcast Day 24 in London. Podcast Day 24 in Sydney will also include Spotify’s new signings Toni and Ryan, and Waleed Aly. Tickets to each event include catchup from the other side of the planet: PODN1215 will get you around half price.

• Those purchased podcast plays are all OK, it seems. After yesterday’s news that iHeartMedia and others have been purchasing podcast plays in game apps, Podtrac tells us: “We decided not to filter these downloads as they are consistent with the latest IAB guidelines. It’s our understanding they appear as browser traffic without a unique user agent (or [unique] IP address). These downloads don’t have a material impact on the publisher rankings including the rank order of the top publishers.”

• Acast has published research on podcast listening in Asia, looking at Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan. 90% of listeners finish all or most of a podcast episode, and 70% say they’re most focused when consuming podcasts rather than other media.

• Listening to podcasts in Canada continues to increase. Signal Hill Insights and TPX have published data from the Canadian Podcast Listener, showing a 17% increase in monthly listeners.

• We reported on Monday that Spotify’s podcast analytics was missing data. The company has placed a banner on Spotify for Podcasters saying the issue will be “fixed as soon as possible”; it looks like recent days are back to normal though.

• Spotted: The Ramsey Network switched from Libsyn to Megaphone a few months ago. Flagship The Ramsey Show reached a billion downloads in Mar 21.

• Yesterday, Serial was #1 in Spotify Podcasts for both the US and Canada, deposing Joe Rogan. (Below, find out if it is today!)

• Former NY governor Andrew Cuomo is to host his own podcast. His brother, former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, has been publishing his podcast twice-weekly.

Moves and hires

• Michael Holt is one of three senior leadership hires at Voiceworks Sport, as Director of Commercial Partnerships. He has more than twenty years experience in audio and TV. The company also welcomed Stefan Doyle as Head of Sport Social and Richard Herrick as Sport Partnerships Director.

Muck Rack's State of Podcasting survey

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Podcast News - with Lemonada Media

From Lemonada Media: Every day, the world seems on the brink of crisis. In In the Bubble with Andy Slavitt when overlapping crises and a relentless news cycle overwhelm Americans, Andy finds the right helpers to help us move forward together.

Financial advice podcast Afford Anything has signed with the Cumulus Podcast Network. Hosted by Paula Pant, the show has more than 22 million downloads.

The CIA has launched its own podcast. The Langley Files: A CIA Podcast released its first episode last week with predictable results. We note it’s hosted by Transistor, a podcast hosting company from… Canada.

Need a new show to listen to? New Podcast Trailers is available in your favourite RSS podcast app, and contains trailers from lots of new shows.