A new podcast company launches in the UK

• Somethin’ Else – which claims it’s Europe’s biggest producer of radio and audio content – is putting £1 million (US$1.3m) into a new podcast division, called Sound Directions. Eight new staff will be hired.

• Brains On!, the science podcast for kids, is partnering with the curious tinkerers at America’s Test Kitchen for a series of episodes on cooking. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal writes more about childrens’ podcasts (paywall).

• A promotional idea from Wondery - a set of Spotify playlists of music inspired by their podcasts. Enjoying their 90s computer games soundtracks for the computer game episodes of Business Wars. And on that: “Business Wars is back with a brand new series to tell the big, bold story of Hearst vs. Pulitzer and how their publishing rivalry came to a head over one particularly salacious case: the mystery of The Headless Torso.”

  
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• In Philadelphia, The Grit Live aims to be 'the Pandora of entrepreneurs’

• Speaking of Philadelphia, Podchaser have a ticket to Podcast Movement to give away, along with $500 for travel. You must be in the US or Canada to enter; entry focuses on reviewing a podcast. Cough.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 2 2023

• The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) included a podcast category in their media and technology awards this year. Congratulations to the winners: Bullock Texas State History Museum’s Texas Story Podcast; WNYC/MOMA’s A Piece of Work; SFMOMA’s Raw Material; Brooklyn Historical Society’s Flatbush + Main; and the independent Museums in Strange Places.

  • The Streamy Awards are now open to enter; there’s a podcast category.
  
  Aug 2 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• New podcasts:

  • Australia’s Smooth FM has launched a wine podcast with a wine retailer. A Moment In Wine is hosted by Acast, with whom Smooth’s owner NOVA Entertainment have a relationship in Australia.
  
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  • Tech news website Fast Company have launched two new podcasts - Secrets of the most productive people and Creative Conversation (“icons from art and business to break down the secrets of their success and their tricks for overcoming creative deserts”).

• Spreaker launch embeddable players for Medium, Patreon and more platforms. If you don’t host with Spreaker, a similar service is available with RadioPublic for any podcast.

  
  Aug 2 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Steven Goldstein writes about podcasts and smart speakers; particularly, a set of data and numbers that might come handy. NPR noted in a conference earlier this week that voice activation is the future of podcasting; we also noted Libsyn’s stats that 0.2% of all podcasts were played on a smart speaker in April.

  
  Aug 2 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Podcraft estimates that, by the end of 2018, there will be 700,000 podcasts available on Apple’s platform.

• Spain: “We see an explosion in branded podcasts” - the view of a panel on Wednesday of The Branded Content Marketing Association (BCMA Spain).

Welcome to our new subscribers this week, including excellent new folks from Saycaster, Slate, Patreon, Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Europe 1, Westwood One, Adlarge, Audioboom, Global, the Carnegie Corp, iHeartMedia, WNYC, RadioMedia Finland, and AdResults Media.

Our podcast subscribe pages now let you see all app subscribe links (thank you, Adam); our site search now returns podcast main categories and artwork and is finger-friendly.