Pocket Casts adds star ratings

• Pocket Casts is adding star ratings to its popular podcast app. The ratings come from a variety of sources including rival app Apple Podcasts, and are treated with a proprietary algorithm: but you won’t, yet, be able to add your own rating in the app.

• Riverside has launched Magic Clips, an AI-enhanced tool to generate short-form clips from long-form content.

• Acast and Veritonic have produced data on successful programmatic ads, highlighting strong tactics and best practices. There are infographics to download and use.

• Fans of NPR’s Car Talk can now binge on an 800-episode archive by subscribing to Car Talk+, on Apple Podcasts or the NPR website (powered by Supporting Cast).

• The British Podcast Awards announced this year’s award nominations. There are over 150 nominees across 27 categories.

• Spotify is increasing the price for Spotify Premium in 53 countries. A Spotify Premium subscription is not required to listen to podcasts on the platform.

• Free plugin, anyone? If you want your podcast to sound as if it’s been recorded on a TASCAM cassette deck, today is your lucky day - and no requirement for a bit of sellotape over the recording hole. You’ve until the end of August to grab a free plugin from TASCAM and IK Multimedia, and add a bit of 1⅞ ips sound to your next show.

Moves and hires

• Grace Carrick has been made Head of U.S. Business Development for Signal Hill Insights. She has worked for Midroll Media and Westwood One.

The Podcast Summit in Miami is next week!

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Tips and tricks

• AI lets you do all kinds of things - not least, Riverside’s new magic clips, which we mention above. Kate Erickson Dumas has five more tools for podcasters.

Podcast News - with the Radioinfo Asia Podcast Awards

You’d have thought that a surname of “Rust” wouldn’t get you far with a show about cars, but Greg Rust of Rusty’s Garage is celebrating his 100th episode. The show was launched in March 2018, and has won a number of awards in Australia and New Zealand.

The Paranormal Podcast could be the longest-running paranormal-themed podcast on the internet: its first episode was July 29, 2005. It releases its 18th anniversary episode today. Host Jim Harold tells us: “I started in 2005 because I love broadcasting and the paranormal. I thought…why not? I had no idea it would become my career! I’m grateful and plan to continue for many more years.”

Bucket List-ening is new today from First Horizon Bank - it promises “captivating stories of real clients who have achieved remarkable milestones and are reaching new ones”.

New from Project Brazen and PRX, Spy Valley looks at James Harper, a Silicon Valley engineer turned spy, who began selling nuclear secrets to the Soviet Bloc. The first episode was released yesterday, with host Zach Dorfman uncovering how Moscow’s spies opened up shop in San Francisco and Silicon Valley at the dawn of the hi-tech age, and how a group of pioneering FBI spy hunters assembled to stop them.

Hang Up, a new reality dating podcast, is new from Radiotopia and PRX today. An entertaining, sex-positive and inclusive show exploring the fun and surprise of dating, it promises to bring the reality dating genre into the reality of dating today.

Rough Translation's final season has just gone live. Love Commandos follows the Delhi-based group that, for nearly a decade, offered shelter and aid to young people who challenged boundaries of caste and religion to marry the people they loved. Hosted by Gregory Warner, there are new episodes every week.