Anchor podcast is a 'shameless rip-off'

• An Anchor podcast called Soldier of Misfortune has been accused of being a shameless rip-off by Brendan I Koerner, a journalist for The Atlantic who wrote the story. His piece took him nine years to report, he says, and he accuses the podcaster, Jesse Rapaport, of knowingly stealing his work, and even pronouncing the name of the main character wrong throughout. “Perhaps we can start a frank discussion about what constitutes fair use for podcasters?” Koerner asks. We’ve approached Rapaport for comment; plagiarism has unfortunately been a recurring theme for many years.

• Apple Podcasts has now added follower metrics for all your shows in Apple Podcasts Connect. Here’s a peek at our revised overview and the new follower trends report. Apple has also published detail of what “following” means; while The Podcast Host tells us how to use these new numbers.

• Audioboom released a Q1/22 trading update. For the quarter, revenue was $19.7m (more than double year-on-year) and the company earned $0.9m EBITDA profit (30x higher year-on-year). It said that it has contracted revenue of $60.5m for this year already: more than it brought in during the whole of 2021.

• #forthespammers: Acast is under fire for continuing to send spam to attract new podcasters to its platform, with one podcast consultant reporting that Acast had spammed his client within seconds of signing with a competitor. A majority of Acast’s mailings seen by Podnews omit a physical postal address, which is required by US law. One unsolicited Acast email claims that “you subscribed to our newsletter via the beefree·io website”, but BeeFree has denied any affiliation with Acast. Acast’s emails also reference Mailup Inc; but mail headers reveal that Acast’s emails are sent using a competitor, Mailgun (via customer·io). Acast haven’t responded to our questions about their emails; they last gave us a cursory statement in February.

• The Brussels Podcast Festival took place over the weekend. LePod covers the three winners of their podcast competition, with categories for fiction, documentary and investigation-interviews.

• SemaBOX, a podcast incubator in Kenya, has helped podcasters earn more than 5.5m Kenyan shillings (US$48,000), the company says.

  
  Sep 13 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Blubrry has added account sharing, allowing additional users and permissions for shows.

• A new podcast awards for Africa, the APVA Awards, are open for nominations.

• Our podcast pages now feature trailers where they exist in your feed - like our page for Your Brain on Facts. If no trailer exists, we’ll display the earliest episode for serial podcasts, or the latest episode for episodic ones. And, in our podcast, you’ll hear selected trailers for the podcasts we cover.

Thank you to mowPod for becoming our latest gold supporter. mowPod are a podcast audience growth agency, working with companies like iHeartRadio, The Gist and the Oprah Winfrey Network to grow their audience with real, engaged listeners. You should be a supporter of Podnews too.

Tips and tricks

• Advice on conducting a great interview is posted on Substack by Alicia Kennedy, the host of Substack’s From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy Podcast.

Podcast News - with Acast

From Acast: Guys Next Door spoke at Podcast Movement Evolutions last month. Mack Wilds, Mouse Jones, and FlyRy guide us through an in-depth look on this generation’s thoughts on love, relationships, sex, and everything in between.

Code Switch, an NPR podcast on race and identity, has received a $600,000 grant from the CPB.

Mark Pesce - The Next Billion Seconds has found a new home at Ampel. Hosted by Pesce, who is a futurist, entrepreneur and author, The Next Billion Seconds explores how the choices we all make today shape our tomorrow. The show was previously with LiSTNR.

Goodniks launched today - a podcast that explores the journey and meaning of doing good in the world. Hosted by Annalisa Enrile, the show follows ten people who spend their lives “doing good” in one way or another. It’s from New Playbook.