Spotify enhance podcast creator tools

• At Podcast Movement, Spotify’s Director of Podcast Product, Austin Lamon, announced a number of enhancements and features for podcasters, including show page customisation, creator controls for podcast previews, and a rollout of automated ads to more countries. There’s a full description of the enhancements on Spotify’s website

  • Spotify’s Megaphone launched a new Spotify Audience Network Performance Dashboard.

• At Podcast Movement, it was announced that Podcast Radio is to launch on FM/AM stations in North America from September, including two top 20 markets. Podcast Radio in the UK carries Podnews podcasting news headlines in audio form.

• Apple Podcasts has quietly stopped adding hidden webpage code to tag podcasts with topics, which it started to do in late 2022. Dan Misener from Bumper spotted the change a few days ago.

• The “summer of sport” is leading to significantly more sports podcast downloads, according to UK podcast producer Sport Social. The Tour de France cycle race and The Ashes cricket led to a 49% increase in downloads.

  • In the US, Nielsen also reported record streaming TV figures.

• Triton Digital released the July 2023 Canadian Podcast Ranker. Average weekly downloads were down 2.2%.

• Audio app Jamit launched its web platform in beta. It describes itself as “a social web app for emerging and established audio storytellers, podcasters, and voice creators”.

• 48% of podcast listeners have purchased a podcast-advertised product, according to a new Power of Podcasts report from Voices, a voiceover marketplace.

Moves and hires

• Chris Corcoran has been hired as GM and Chief Content Officer of Audity, the audio division of Asylum Entertainment Group. He was Chief Content Officer of Cadence13.

Tips and tricks - with Pod Predictor by Coleman Insights

• How do I get more listeners to my podcast is a question we’ve heard rather a lot of over the past few days. Here are a few ideas.

Podcast News - with Airwave

Part of the Airwave podcast network: Which is the only London Underground station without any of the letters in the word “mackerel”? Part quiz show, part offbeat trivia, and all awesome - Good Job, Brain! is nuts about trivia and pub quizzes. Join the show for more mental nutrition. Even enjoy it when catching the tube at St John’s Wood.

In the Media Roundtable, Oxford Road’s Jennifer Laine and guests, including our Editor, look at the week’s podcasting news.

Food: We can’t live without it, but we don’t talk about it nearly enough. What does our food say about us and about the way we live? If This Food Could Talk is new today from from APT Podcast Studios: Mediterranean lifestyle expert Claudia Hanna takes a look into the world’s pantry… and comes back with incredible stories.