Power-up your podcast in July

• Want to power-up your podcast? Starting tomorrow, a 30-day Podcast Power-Up Challenge will give you ways to do that. You get a prompt (via email and Slack), it’ll just take 10-15 minutes a day, you’ll gain valuable skills by the end of it, we’re told: and you’ll join a community of like-minded podcasters. Run by Hall of Famer Arielle Nissenblatt, it’s free to take part.

• Apple Podcasts released “Creators We Love: UK & Ireland”, a feature in the Apple Podcasts app which “celebrates some of the UK and Ireland’s most influential, entertaining, and trailblazing voices in podcasting”. The five shows selected are NewlyParents, The Receipts Podcast, I’m Grand Mam, Happy Place, and The High Performance Podcast. All shows are in video on Apple Podcasts; and all are hosted by Acast.

• Got something you want to share at one of the biggest gatherings for podcasting in the world? You have until the end of today to submit a session for Podcast Movement NYC.

• The podcast business is worth $9.2 billion globally. Owl & Co’s Global Podcast Economy Report looks at the entire industry across five revenue streams, not just audio ads. Alongside the public data, the company has announced a Subscriber edition, which includes M&A data, revenue estimates and valuations; we’re told PODNEWS10 will currently save 10% off individual or qualifying team access.

• What happens when you add captions to your podcast video on YouTube? Headliner surveyed 250 podcasters, and discovered that most of them reported higher view counts as a result. Research shows that 85% of people watch video on mute. (For what it’s worth, the Podnews Weekly Review spotted an increase in view counts after we turned captions on).

• PodcastOne published their results for the last financial year. The company brought in $61mn (+18%); it made a loss of $2.6mn.

• The British Audio Awards - also known as The Speakies - have added a number of podcast categories (as well as audio drama awards). They’re run by The Bookseller and The Stage. The submission deadline is Jul 9.

• Inc. writes a profile of Dear Media - “making the case that the most valuable thing a podcast can build is community” … meanwhile, Kara Swisher is profiled in Fortune; Pivot will earn $15-$20mn this year, and has a staff of just five.

The Tech Stuff - with RSS.com

• When you enable HLS video with your podcast host, the Apple Podcasts app doesn’t download the video (or the audio) in one part any more - it downloads little chunks instead. One of the benefits of that is, we’re told, that it’s much easier to know how much of an episode is actually consumed: because it’s only downloading those parts. But - is HLS video really better for consumption stats? We take a look as to whether we can work out a “play”.

• Wouldn’t it be amazing if there was a “Podcasts” tab in Google? Well, there isn’t one; but there is a podcast tab in Kagi, a paid-for search engine. A normal search for Podnews find us, of course; but flick to the podcasts tab, and it searches through a set of podcast episodes. You can do the same search for Rob Walch, and you find a bunch of relevant episodes that he’s been on; or a search for “the best microphone” finds podcasts that do exactly that, too. The links mostly go to podcast websites; but to Apple Podcasts as well. There’s a free 100 search trial, and no AI unless you deliberately turn it on.

  • If you already use Kagi, start your query with !podnews to directly search our website.

Tips and tricks

• There is “so” much content you can make from just one podcast episode, and it all helps you appear in Google, suggests Sarah McDowell, writing for The Podcast Host.

Podcast News - with Airwave

From Airwave: The Ancient World looks at the first human civilizations, all the way through to the Hellenistic and Roman eras. It’s a part of Airwave History, and season two finished earlier this year with a big flood.

“Both heartwarming and deeply disgusting.” Creatures of the Wind features short, sound-rich audio movies about life, growing up, grief and love - including an episode following two women and their pregnancies. The producer, Mae, tells us it’s unlike anything else out there.

A new book, Empathy Machines: This American Life, Podcasting and the Public Radio Structure of Feeling, is the first full-length book about This American Life; and is written by an expert on the history of NPR, Jason Loviglio. He’s on the Phantom Power podcast unpacking what he learnt.

Already at episode #119, CrazyFitnessGuy is an autistic-led healthy living podcast for neurodivergent adults who are tired of the usual “go hard or go home” wellness advice. Hosted by Jimmy Clare, the show features sensory-friendly habits, realistic routines, and practical tools that respect executive dysfunction, burnout, and real-life limits.