A new icon font to make podcast websites easier

• Exclusive: Like FontAwesome but for podcasts, The Podcast Font is launched today: a new icon font for websites, containing consistent icons and logos for popular podcast platforms, apps and functionality. It makes graphical buttons and links just as easy as one line of code. It’s open and free.

• Buzzsprout has published its platform stats for Dec 2021. Compiled using IAB certified data, it shows Apple Podcasts once more well in the lead for episode downloads.

• The BPI, the British record company association, has published music consumption data for 2021. Streams increased by 5.7% year-on-year. They highlight: “For an artist, 10 million streams generates at least the same royalties as 10,000 CD sales, and nearly 2,000 artists will achieve at least 10 million streams this year in the UK alone – nearly double the number who sold the equivalent number of CDs and downloads in 2007.”

• LiveOne, owner of PodcastOne, has announced a financial restructure to lower its debt.

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

• Coincidence corner: Last week, we linked to another positive client note from Morgan Stanley about Spotify - fastest-growing music service, #1 platform for unique podcast listeners, satisfaction increasing, etc. Spotify shares rose 0.6% that day. Meanwhile, page 79 of Spotify’s financial report discloses that Morgan Stanley owns $3.2bn worth of Spotify shares.

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

Have you been away? Here’s what you missed - over the holiday period, a true crime podcast was sued for their interview tapes in a concerning development for journalists; Facebook’s Podcasts service is confusing some podcast stats and misleading some creators; and there were 1.2m, or 566,000 new shows in 2021.

Moves and hires - with Pod People

• Rob Byers is to join Vox Media’s Criminal Productions as fulltime Technical Director. He’s currently Director of Broadcast and Media Operations at American Public Media, and a Board Member of AIR; he’s been mixing Criminal and This Is Love for many years. Vox Media is hiring for a number of production staff.

This link is no longer available, as at Sep 10 2023
• Norman Chella has joined Podchaser as Podcast Librarian. He’ll be working on accuracy for the platform’s credits.

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

Tips and tricks

• Popular podcast Darknet Diaries has released its year-end stats for 2021. Host Jack Rhysider details the cross-promotion he did (and its effect); how he uses social media, and whenever he got press coverage.
  • Notably - 31% of his downloads were from Spotify; and Apple Podcasts (including about 40% of AppleCoreMedia) is, we calculate around 24%.

Podcast News - with Quill

Produced by Quill: C Suite Join Claudette McGowan, TD Bank’s Global Executive Officer for Cyber Security, as she explores how cyber-attacks happen and what we can do to avoid them. From phishing schemes to robocalls, Claudette meets with C Suite leaders to discuss cyber challenges and ways to help people become more protected.

The Hangover Liberation Society is a show that explores the upside of sobriety, and why ditching alcohol is so much more than just liberating yourself from hangovers. Hosted by Adrienne van der Valk and Erin Ranta, the show is live on Thursdays on the Loudspeaker app, and available as a podcast shortly afterwards. - read more

Meet Cute Rom-Coms presents “Sidewalk Confidential,” a new rom-com series where surly private-eye Liz (Jackie Cruz from Orange Is The New Black) and bold journalist Rachel team up against all odds, to catch a cheater in NYC. Will this unlikely duo discover more than just infidelity? Find out in this classic (and queer) two-hander; it’s available now by subscription, and released on RSS during January.

Desperately Seeking Wisdom is a new podcast released yesterday, hosted by Craig Oliver, formerly UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s Director of Politics and Communications, and a senior manager at BBC News. In his first episode, he talks to former BBC presenter George Alagiah, who was told in 2014 that he had bowel cancer.