Podpage adds a listener survey tool

• Exclusive: Podpage has added a listener survey tool for anyone using its podcast website service. It uses standard questions inspired by Tom Webster’s The Audience is Listening, and you can add your own questions should you require.

• Exclusive: The Wondery/Novel show Kill List - an five-year investigation into the targeting of hundreds of innocent people on a murder-for-hire website - is to have a live show in London, on Dec 3. Tickets went on sale this morning; host Carl Miller and producers Caroline Thornham and Tom Wright will share backstories of how the show was made, with audio clips, outtakes, and Q&A.

• Quill and Ipsos have published the 2024 Podcast Marketing Trust Index report. 56% say an endorsement by podcast hosts influences their trust in a product or service.

• iHeart released its Q3/24 financials. Podcast revenue, at $114mn, was up 11% year-on-year; and now accounts for 11.3% of the company’s total. The company is paying more in podcast revenue sharing, however.

• Auddia released its Q3/24 financials. The company, which makes an ad-skipping radio and podcast app, made a loss of $1.9mn. The financial notes say that the company has a total debt of $87mn, and needs to raise more money to keep trading after Q1/25. It has raised $10.4mn this year so far.

• The New York Times released its Q3/24 financials, too. Podcasting is only mentioned twice in the prepared remarks: “We also began experimenting to make audio a more direct driver of subscriptions with new paid offerings available through Spotify and Apple.”

• In the the UK, there are 967,000 people who listen to podcasts, but don’t listen to any radio. (12.6mn people listen to podcasts each week as a whole.)

• McAfee has released a tool that “flags AI-generated audio within seconds”. The launch of McAfee Deepfake Detector is part of McAfee’s Smart AI Hub.

• Podsift, a tool that summarises podcasts, has now incorporated 250 podcasts into its service.

• Podcast Bestie, a newsletter and podcast for independent creators, is celebrating its third anniversary. The newsletter, written by Courtney Kocak, now has over 5,000 subscribers.

• Manchester’s Crowd Network has expanded, hiring two new video producers.

• Global’s DAX has been appointed Deezer’s exclusive ad partner in the US. Deezer was with Targetspot.

• Streamyard has updated its terms, according to an email to users. For free users, it now plans to delete all recordings after 12 months (the previous terms just said they could delete them at any time if they wanted). The company increased its monthly pricing by 80% in September.

We last updated The Podnews Ranker in July 2022, but given All The News, it’s probably time to see it back again. We use it to measure the gender balance of the people we mention: and our gender balance of stories over the last 90 days, it reports, was 39% female. The page places this in context with other parts of the podcast industry.

The Tech Stuff - with RSS.com

• If you’re a podcast host, we calculate you’ll be serving each active podcast RSS feed 42,000 times a day. So, we assumed that all podcast hosts are making it easier to spot when a feed has been updated - or, are using compression to significantly lower bandwidth bills. After testing each podcast host’s RSS feeds, we were surprised at how many don’t support compression - or the last-modified header.

• Are you seeing Apple Podcasts reject more of your own VTT transcripts lately, and insisting on using its own? We’d be curious to know. Drop us an email?

• From the archive: incognito mode for podcasting?

Tips and tricks - with Memberful

• There are some excellent books about podcasting out there, so we’ve put together a list. (Got any favourites we’ve missed? Hit reply and let us know).

Podcast News - with New Podcast Trailers - the podcast

In 2023, there were 656 mass shootings in the United States. The one in Lewiston, Maine on October 25, 2023 was the deadliest. It may have also been the most preventable. One year later, Breakdown explores the missed opportunities to prevent the shooting, the role of guns and hunting in Maine’s politics, and the aftermath for shooting victims, some of whom were deaf and hard of hearing. It’s a limited-series from Maine Public Radio, the Portland Press Herald and FRONTLINE, the award-winning PBS investigative documentary series.

Hollywood’s biggest night is also the most baffling - the film frequently hailed as the “Greatest Film of All Time” didn’t take home the Oscar; and two of the Top 100 American Films of All-Time were overlooked for nominations in the same year. OSCARS… What Were They Thinking?! is new today, with historical insights, engaging discussions, and never-before-heard stories

The Binge Crimes: Lady Mafia started this month - a podcast that explores the world of Orange County, CA high powered lawyer Sara King, who was accused of scamming investors out of $10 million before her story was splashed across the headlines. The show features Sara King herself, speaking for the first time - who says she’s no con artist.

Mark Lombardi’s intricate drawings traced hot money, from Cold War funding to the heroin trade. But his most dogged scrutiny fell on the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a global money laundry bankrolling fraudsters, smugglers, and CIA operations abroad. A new show from Project Brazen, The Illuminator: Art, Conspiracy and Madness asks whether that was why he was found dead at 48.