Samsung app to get update

• The Samsung Free podcast app will “soon be updated”, according to a communication from Acast to its podcasters, to remove the cause of a significant increase in downloads from automatic plays. (See yesterday’s Tech Stuff for more). In the meantime, Acast has demonetised listens coming from the Dalvik useragent “to protect our advertisers”; and notes that “under IAB guidelines, these listens are considered valid”. (Also considered valid downloads: those podcast plays bought in games apps)

• Want to buy a successful podcast app? How about one of the biggest podcast apps on phones in developing countries? An app newly listed on MicroAcquire is, Podnews understands, popular KaiOS app PodLP.

• Transistor has followed Buzzsprout’s lead by removing email addresses from podcast RSS feeds, to combat spam: something Podnews has highlighted for a number of years. The company has also added support for a verification code to help podcasters claim their shows.

• Want podcast merch promoting the good people at Shure? Here’s a coupon for 15% off - YAYMERCH15 - we like the SM58 bottle opener, just saying.

• The founders of Multitude Productions in Greenpoint NY have shown a local website round their office. The company employs six people and makes a living for 25 podcasters.

• Another true-crime podcast has been mentioned in a court inquest. News Corp’s Dead Wrong contained “a lot of information”, said a police offer, but “not evidence of an offence”; and much of it was just regurgitating information already known. The inquest continues.

• AdLarge has added true-crime show Murder With My Husband to its sales portfolio.

• Podimo has launched Entre el cielo y las nubes, a podcast from the influencer Laura Escanes.

Moves and hires

• Taylor Kirch has been announced as Director of Product Management at Libsyn. She joins from Pandora and SiriusXM.

Tips and tricks

• How Brand Marketers Can Leverage Programmatic in Podcasting (Adswizz)

• Promoting your podcast? Radio might be a good place, says new research from NuVoodoo.

Podcast News - with CBC Podcasts

From CBC Podcasts #1 is: Front Burner. Canada’s essential daily news podcast. We take you deep into the stories shaping Canada and the world. Hosted by Jayme Poisson.

Meet Your Podcast Editor is probably due a name-change today to “Meet Your Podnews Editor”, because that’s who the guest is today. James Cridland, our editor, talks about humour to host Stephanie Fuccio. Watch on video if you’d rather.

Broken Road, a dystopian science-fiction audio drama, has posted its first season. The show follows a veteran struggling with obsolete military implants who teams up with a defiant farmer and her daughter against a corrupt, morally unhinged lawman. It’s already achieved more than 100,000 downloads.

'Gaslighting’ has been chosen as the word of the year by Mirriam-Webster, just as The Gaslight Effect Podcast launches. ‘The gaslight effect’ is what happens to someone over time when they have been intentionally psychologically manipulated to question their own character, perception of reality, and ultimately their sanity. Hosted by Dr. Robin Stern, a psychoanalyst, you’ll learn how to get out of it, and to recover.

Podcast ads in the wild

Spotted over the weekend by Podnews reader Tanya, CBC’s Run Hide Repeat gets coverage from Amazon Music in Yonge–Dundas Square in Toronto ON, Canada. The screen is on a building called The Tenor, and is “one of Canada’s largest outdoor digital billboards”, costing more than $2 million when it was installed in 2021. The square and a nearby street is named after a British politician called Henry Dundas, who never actually visited Canada because he was too busy delaying the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade: so, rightly, the street and square will be renamed in 2023. We’d gently point out that it isn’t actually a square: so maybe we could suggest “The Yonge-Podnews Irregular Pentagon”. We’ve actually been there, if it helps.