Google helps people move away from Google Play Music Podcasts

• Google has released a set of tools to help us move away from Google Play Music - the music service is switching to YouTube Music. For podcast listeners who still use it, the company has added tools for listeners to transfer podcast subscriptions to Google Podcasts and for publishers to transfer their podcasts to Google Podcasts Manager. It should hopefully start to end confusion about these two products.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 24 2023
  • Google Play Music Podcasts’s publish page still doesn’t acknowledge the existence of Google Podcasts, and is still the top Google result for “Add your podcast to Google”. For the record, the right way to add your podcast to Google Podcasts is to visit the Google Podcasts Manager.

• Is there a growing market imbalance in podcasting? Writing for Podnews, Libsyn’s Rob Greenlee wonders if we have too many new podcasts, but not enough new listeners. He also calls for Apple Podcasts to launch an Android app. “It would be great to see Apple Podcasts get very aggressive in this area”, he says. (Our Editor suggested this in March 2019, too. Great minds, etc.)

• Cumulus Media, owners of Westwood One, said in their earnings call that their podcast revenue was up 60% year-on-year in March. Downloads were also up year-on-year by 50%.

• Edison Research is presenting a webinar “Podcasting: Connection and Community During Quarantine” - it will focus on how listening, and listeners, have been changing during the coronavirus pandemic. It’s free, May 21 at 1pm Eastern.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 24 2023
  • The company is also doing a webinar announcing Infinite Dial Australia 2020, which will give information including podcast consumption data for the country. That’s May 20 at 10.30am Sydney time.
  
  Aug 24 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Entertainment company MGM has bought a stake in Audio Up, a new podcast company. Terms weren’t disclosed; Audio Up will make five news shows a year for MGM, and MGM will get first look for development opportunities.

• AccessMore is a new podcast network from the Educational Media Foundation, an online podcast platform featuring a library of faith-based podcasts. It officially launches next week.

• During Veritone’s earnings call, the company said that their podcasting business remains very strong. Time spent consuming podcasts, the company says, has increased during the coronavirus pandemic.

• This is quite nice - a real-time view of what podcasts are being listened-to on Listen Notes. (We’d love to see this for Google Podcasts too… ah, go on, go on)

Tips and tricks

• How to build a strong podcast community (We Edit Podcasts)

• What should you charge to make a podcast? Tanner Campbell from The Portland Pod explains his pricing policy.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 24 2023

• Interesting fact: Acast’s new MD for the UK, Georgie Holt, still hasn’t actually been into the office since getting the role. She writes about what she’s learnt in terms of leadership.

Podcast News

Zane and Heath Unfiltered has joined The Roost, a video-centric podcast network from Rooster Teeth. The shows does 5m views and 2m audio downloads per month.

Stuck at Home is a new podcast from Starburns Audio with Cliff Dorman. The company’s press release highlights that the show streams live on YouTube, Facebook Live and Twitter, as well as a podcast.

Every day, Jason Gots (who used to host the interview podcast Think Again) will be given a word, and he has to come up with a short story and a song about it. Clever Creature - new today - is the result.