Spotify deletes some virus-related episodes

• Spotify appear to be removing some podcasts about the coronavirus, particularly from alternative health podcasters, claiming that they are “in violation of their content policies”. There is no opportunity for appeal. Spotify didn’t respond to our request for comment.

  • Neither this nor this have been removed, incidentally.
  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 22 2023
  • We’re not aware of any such policy from Apple Podcasts. YouTube demonetises all related videos by default; Medium adds a note linking to official information.

• Baq Hadri and Zack Reneau-Wedeen from the Google Podcasts team took part in a Reddit AMA yesterday. The “Ask Me Anything” session was covered by 9to5Google.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 22 2023

• Dynamic advertising insertion isn’t just for advertising, says Pacific Content’s Dan Misener, highlighting the use of this technology for adding topical messages within otherwise evergreen episodes.

• Anchor has announced “new podcast analytics powered by Spotify”. The system pulls data available on the Spotify for Podcasters platform into the hosting service.

• Evergreen Podcasts has announced a second investment of $500,000 from a streaming radio station.

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• BBC Sounds has added UK children’s radio network Fun Kids’ daily podcast Stuck at Home to its platform, over here. It’s believed to be the first time an active show from a commercial radio network has appeared on the BBC’s service.

• Owen Grover, who suddenly left Pocket Casts last week, has been hired as CEO of TrueFire Studios, an alliance of leading online music education companies.

Changing times, changing consumption

• Australian podcast host Mamamia claims a record number of listens of its podcasts during March. The company’s data also shows that podcast listening is increasing during the day.

• Acast points to more usage of smart speakers to consume podcasts.

• Stitcher has told Nick Quah’s subscription HotPod newsletter that overall listening has dipped by 7% over the past three weeks.

• Magellan has published a post about how advertisers are changing their messaging.

• Podcasters are turning to crowdsourcing their audio, reports the Bello Collective.