Keeping private podcasts private

How’s Apple Podcasts now? A month after the new Apple Podcasts Connect launched, we hope everything’s all fine: but we’re curious as to your experiences. For a story on Friday, we’d like to be able to report to our 19,000 podcast industry subscribers that the system responsible for around 40% of all podcast downloads is now working well. If that’s not the case with you, please hit 'reply’ and tell us what you’re seeing when publishing to Apple Podcasts. And don’t worry - we’ll keep your details private, so you won’t jeopardise that New & Noteworthy spot. Thanks.

• Do you publish a private or members-only podcast feed? Chances are, you want to keep it that way. The Podcast Index has launched an open project to collect regex patterns for your private URL scheme to stop The Podcast Index, and others, ever displaying those feeds publicly.

• Are celebrities ruining podcasting? Fiona Sturges writes: “The celebrity podcast has become the bindweed of the audio industry, hoovering up budgets, threatening to smother the competition and, in some cases, heralding a dispiriting drop in quality.”

• The New York Times is in talks to buy The Athletic.

  
  Sep 3 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Apple now earns more from the app store than the entire music industry earns from music.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Sep 3 2023

• In Apple Podcasts for iOS 14.6, we’ve spotted that the app no longer refuses to display a <description> if there is an <itunes:summary> present. Instead it displays the summary as expected in the episode list; and the description in the episode page. We’ve updated our advice.

  • Despite specifying that you can use <a href links in their documentation, these do not work in Apple Podcasts on iOS. We have a request into Apple Podcasts to ask which is wrong: the app or the documentation. If they reply, we’ll let you know.

• Speaking at a JP Morgan conference, SiriusXM’s CEO Jennifer Witz said that the company sees double-digit revenue growth in podcasting for years to come.

• Audry has unveiled a simpler and easier way to collaborate with podcasters, using a template-driven system.

• Podcast host Whooshkaa now allows you to host and publish video episodes. The company has also announced enhanced transcript support.

Tips and tricks - with Sounder․fm

• Julian Shapiro writes a Twitter thread explaining how to quickly grow an online audience.

• Yes, you can earn Bitcoin from your podcast.

Podcast News - with HubSpot Podcast Network

From the HubSpot Podcast Network: MarTech Podcast tells the stories of world-class marketers who use technology to generate growth and achieve business and career success.

The artwork for Absolutely Mental, a new podcast from Ricky Gervais and Sam Harris, was designed by Jason Chatfield. (The paid-for podcast appears to be using its own private RSS system).

Triton Digital has released the Latin American Podcast Report for April 2021. Toxicomanía is the highest new entry at 7.

CNN’s 5 Things twice-daily podcast is going to publish more episodes, and become available though the weekends. It accounts for 43% of CNN’s total podcast downloads.

Tony Hawk and Jason Ellis are to launch a new podcast, Hawk vs Wolf. It launches on June 14.

Gangster Capitalism, from Audacy’s C13Originals, is back for a third season.