Smart-speaker use continues to grow

• Edison Research and NPR released The Smart Audio Report. 62% of American adults use a voice assistant; 35% now own a smart speaker; 47% purchased them, in part, to listen to podcasts (and 39% of people use their smart speaker to listen to podcasts in a typical week). Two-thirds listen to news on their device (like Podnews).

• The Infinite Dial Canada will be unveiled on June 30. The research includes comparable data on podcast listening in the country.

• Does Spotify use playback data to help its studios spy on the competition? HotPod Insider quotes Bill Simmons, Spotify’s Global Head of Sports Content, in the Recode Media podcast this week, suggesting it’s part of their process (our bold): “One of the reasons we wanted to go to Spotify was they have an incredible war chest of intelligence on the habits of people who listen to podcasts, right? So if we like a certain podcast, we can actually go and see how many people are listening to it. If we feel like there’s a piece of kind of turf available, then that can inform — like who’s in that turf, who’s doing well, can we beat this, can we have a bigger audience than this.”

• Academy and Emmy Award-winning actress Julianne Moore and Golden Globe-winning actor Oscar Isaac are to star in a new podcast from Spotify called Case 63. The show was announced in September last year, and is an adaptation of a show from Santiago in Chile which was Spotify’s most listened-to show in Latin America.

• Congratulations to Christine “Kix” Mwaturura from the podcast Private Affairs who has just been announced as the recipient of the 2022 Jesse Cox Audio Fellowship.

• Veritone, which owns artifical speech company Veritone Voice, has acquired another synthetic voice company, VocaliD.

• A new free podcast host in Germany has been launched by full-service podcast agency Podcastbude (“Podcast Booth”). The company places advertising within shows, and shares the revenue with the creator.

• A comedy podcast festival is coming to London in October - Cheerful Earful will include shows from Richard Herring, We Are History, and Pappy’s Flatshare.

• The Pocket Casts web player has been updated. It’s had a number of updates so far this year; the latest release includes a redesign of your Up Next queue, and work on the Mac OS app.

• Podcast production company Listen won the Best Start Up (Agency) award at the ALF Awards this week.

• Julie-Anna Needham of Decibel Podcasts learnt eight things at The Podcast Show in London; while podcast host Captivate interviewed eleven attendees, including Podnews’s Editor.

• Eric Nuzum wonders whether podcasting lacks a middle class.

• The Cult of Mac website thinks Overcast is the best podcast app out there.

Tips and tricks - with RedCircle

• Blubrry tells us how to create a brand for your podcast.

• Confused at all the statistics you see for your podcast? Here’s how to understand them, and what to look out for.

Podcast News - with Post Script Media

From Post Script Media: Hot Buttons is a show about the future of fashion and culture on a changing planet. Each week, Christina Binkley, Rachel Kibbe, and Shilla Kim-Parker unwind the breaking news, industry moves, cultural trends, and tech breakthroughs that are shaping sustainable fashion. The fashion industry is one of the world’s biggest polluters. Can we change it?

The Aftergrad Podcast has just published its fifteenth and final episode of season one, highlighting the fear and emotion that recent graduates feel when transitioning from university into the real world. The show is hosted by Robert Cain and Victoria Gilbert, who graduated in May 2021.

From Crooked Media, Mother Country Radicals won the prestigious Tribeca Podcast Award: Best Audio Storytelling in Nonfiction, following its world premiere as an Audio Storytelling Official Selection at the Tribeca Festival. All the winners are here.

In Podland News this week, an interview from Ken Miller from new podcast app Fathom, where he talks about the secret for any start-up: Hot Impossible Magic.

“A corrupt cabal of football executives turned the beautiful game into an international con job”, according to Lords of Soccer, which is a new podcast from iHeartRadio and Inside Voices Media. The podcast looks at how corruption, racism, sexism, and greed have tainted global soccer and the World Cup for decades.

He’s kind of a big deal - The Ron Burgundy Podcast is back for a new season; and he’s in front of a live studio audience this time around.

If you like learning about new podcasts in Podnews, you can now get this section as a podcast itself. New Podcast Trailers is (are?) available in your favourite RSS podcast app.