Budden ex-buddies sign with Stitcher

• SiriusXM’s Stitcher has signed Rory Farrell and Jamil 'MAL’ Clay, to bring New Rory & MAL to their More Sauce network. It’s the latest high-profile podcast signing from Stitcher. Not in the press release: any mention of Joe Budden, who fired the duo from his podcast in May.

• Earlier this week, we published data from Podtrac showing that Spotify is close to Apple in terms of US monthly users but nowhere near in terms of US downloads. John Spurlock has calculated how many episodes Podtrac, and the other analytics services, measured in September.

• Spotify is breaking podcasts, according to a piece in WIRED. It quotes Keri Hoffman from PRX: “What makes podcasting a healthy ecosystem, and different from where consolidation has happened in other industries, is the fact that there are lots of access points, people can listen on a multitude of devices and platforms”.

  • Meanwhile, Spotify is spending money to promote its advertising opportunities, with a campaign called All Ears On You.
  • The company’s VP of Personalisation, Oskar Stål, explains how personalisation works at Spotify, and details differences between podcasts and music.
  • Fortune magazine has a story headlined Spotify—licensee of Joe Rogan podcast—says it won’t allow inaccurate information (wow, we think our coverage is too sarcastic sometimes). The article quotes Dawn Ostroff suggesting that the company is focusing on content moderation, trust and safety.

• Audacy has bought something for $40m. The SEC report says it’s a “small digital acquisition”, but gives no other details. The company also says its revenues for Q3/21 should be up about 23% year-on-year.

• Ads are more than twice as memorable if they’re next to relevant content, according to data from GumGum. MediaTel explains 'conversational targeting tools’, and how Acast and DAX are using them for ads.

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• Auphonic now has a native integration with Podbean. The service applies sound levelling and noise reduction.

• Podcast app Castbox is to be in cars: the company has signed a partnership with Faurecia Aptoide Automotive, which provides apps for a variety of auto manufacturers.

• Writing in the Bello Collective, Galen Beebe suggests listening to podcasts at 0.8x speed to make time for yourself.

• For the Cairo Review, Kim Fox and Josephine Karianjahi write African Podcasting: Challenges and Chances. TechNova covers the state of podcasting in Ghana.

• The Paris Podcast Festival has started. It’ll run this weekend.

• The 2021 Discover Pods Awards are have announced the finalists and voting is open until 6pm ET today. Categories include best debut podcast of 2021, true crime, news, history, kids & family, and more; here’s a direct link.

Moves and hires

• Theo Balcomb is to leave The Daily from the New York Times after five years as producer. “I’m looking to dive into tape, hunker down with stories, edit and produce beautiful things,” she says.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Sep 8 2023

• Jon Hales has joined DAX as Chief Growth Officer, North America. He joins from Spotify.

• Alex Underwood has joined Vurbl as Chief Revenue Officer. He’s been an advisor to the company since January; he left Spotify at the end of 2019.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Sep 8 2023

Podcast News

Shandee’s Story is a new podcast from Hedley Thomas, the host of The Teacher’s Pet, a critically-acclaimed podcast that led to a new arrest. Another true-crime podcast, it launches first in the app for The Australian newspaper.

Podland today has a long interview with “Brian of London” about Podping, Hive and dairy cows, Genevieve Hassan about how she got her podcast onto Virgin Atlantic aeroplanes, as well as plenty more comment about the week’s podcasting news. (Use the chapters in your podcast app to navigate through.)