Spotify now has 200m active users worldwide

• Spotify now has 200m global active users, up by 10% over the past six months. 87m of those are paying customers. Morgan Stanley says users listen for 4.4 hours a week - Apple Music is 3.7m. However, 50% of Spotify users say that all the podcasts they want aren’t on the service. Notwithstanding this, it’s the #2 most popular podcast app. (Search for a podcast, and we’ll show you a Spotify link if it’s there.)

• Meanwhile, is music streaming service Tidal cooking its numbers? The company (owned by Jay-Z, who is Beyoncé's husband) was accused of artifically increasing the amount of streams for Beyoncé's album to such an extent that every subscriber would have played the album eight times a day. A Norwegian authority, the excellently noir-sounding Økokrim, is investigating.

• FastCompany write about how podcast apps are making money, focusing on Castro and also encompassing many others. The app, owned by Candian investors Tiny, declined to share usage figures.

  
  Aug 9 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Google is discontinuing its Chromecast Audio product, a method of adding connected audio to decent hifi speakers. (The Podnews office has two in daily use.) While the Amazon Echo Dot has a 3.5mm jack that could replace it, the Google Home Mini does not. Meanwhile, over a million people (in the US) have pre-ordered an Amazon Alexa Auto: Google Assistant is already in all cars with Android Auto.

• “Hey, Pandora” - Pandora now has voice control. The initial information doesn’t indicate how it works with podcasts.

• Podchaser is now integrated with TeePublic, allowing podcasters to add merch directly to their podcast page. Podcasters that link their pages can get a free t-shirt with their podcast artwork.

• APM, American Public Media, has opened a pitching round for new podcasts. Submissions are open from now 'till February 15th; there’s more detail and tips for success on their pitch website.

• Job: Global is looking for a Podcast Project Manager in London, UK. “A project manager to oversee launches and ongoing marketing for our original and third-party partner podcasts.”

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 9 2023

• Whooshkaa, an Australian podcast host, is automatically applying audio normalisation for uploaded podcasts by a subset of users, with the aim of making this optionally available to everyone in a few weeks. “The feedback has been positive,” the company says. Aussie competitor Omny Studio has had the feature since March. We ran analysis a year ago of podcast loudness, and have a full LUFS FAQ on the subject.

• Podnews will be at the NAB Show in Las Vegas NV, USA, in April; and at Canadian Music Week in Toronto ON, Canada, in May. We’re also really trying hard to be at Podfest in Orlando FL, USA in March.

Podcasts

Acclaimed criminal justice podcast Justice In America returns for a second season today. Hosted by criminal justice reform experts and social media influencers, Josie Duffy Rice and Clint Smith, it explores America’s criminal justice system and its effects on American communities, particularly communities of color and low-income communities.

CBS News and book publisher Simon & Schuster have partnered on a book and podcast collaboration. CBS correspondent Mo Rocca launches Mobituaries, an irreverent but deeply researched appreciation of the people (and things) of the past who have long intrigued him—from an unsung Founding Father to the first Chinese-American superstar, from Neanderthals to the station wagon. The book comes out in November.

If Mobituaries are your thing, but you’d prefer something a little more British, you may also like Last Word from the BBC, with the “aloof British accent” of Matthew Bannister.