Podcasts on Amazon Music - all you need to know

• Amazon Music’s podcast service goes live in the US, UK, Germany and Japan. We have all you need to know about podcasts in Amazon Music - how to get there, where it’s available, and the useragents it uses.

• Auddy, a significant new podcast studio launches in the UK. The company is founded by global media executives, and commissions are made by journalists, directors and producers. It is partnered with Global’s DAX for ad sales.

• First look: NPR is now using Chartable’s SmartAds Attribution, joining over 11,000 podcasts doing so. The technology helps advertisers understand how well their podcast ads are doing.

• AudioNow, a podcast app, launches in France. The free podcast app will focus on local podcast content, aiming to share data with podcasters. It’s owned by Prisma Media and M6/RTL (who reach 96% of the French population each month); eleven publishers have joined for launch. AudioNow is already a leading podcast app in Germany with 6m monthly users. It’s seen by some as “an answer to American platforms”.

  
  Aug 27 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Deezer adds a country selector feature, which allows you to switch the editorial content of your app to the country of your choosing. Whether you’re a Brit but live in Australia, or a Finland-loving Canadian, you can get highlights of the latest music and podcasts from whatever country you want.

• Podcast Movement Virtual announces a third round of speakers.

• SpeechText is a new podcast transcription service. Based in France, it has a free trial, and a “pay as you go” pricing plan instead of a monthly subscription.

Thank you to Amazon Music, who becomes our latest gold supporter. They’ve helped us get our email look rather nicer on Outlook 2016, for which we hired a machine at, um, Amazon. You can support us too.

Tips and tricks

• 7 tips for brands starting a podcast (from Spotify’s Dustee Jenkins)
• How to Record Face-to-Face Podcast Interviews (The Podcast Host)

Podcast News

CNN and iHeartRadio have launched Election 101, a new co-produced podcast that demystifies the American political system. (As a Brit looking in from afar - good luck with that.) It’s hosted by CNN correspondent Kristen Holmes, distributed by the iHeartPodcast Network and hosted on Megaphone; last month, a shortform podcast CNN Political Briefing was launched using Omny Studio.

Too Much To Say with Kalie Shorr launched yesterday, from Bobby Bones’s Nashville Podcast Network. The country singer/songwriter’s show will be executive-produced by Bones, a US broadcaster with iHeartRadio.