Spotify signs another exclusive podcast

• Think Spotify has stopped signing new shows? Think again - the company has signed up Toni and Ryan as an exclusive show for the platform in “a multiyear, multimillion-dollar contract”; the Aussie show becomes exclusive on Aug 8, and they’ll also produce some shows in video, after seeing rapid increases in audience. The duo are represented by Marchmedia.

• Remote audio tool Cleanfeed has highlighted some of the work the team has done for accessibility in the platform, helping the blind and low vision community.

• After Sounds Profitable’s The Creators reported that only 29% of podcast creators are female, we’re proud that The Podnews Ranker for June shows 41% of our mentions over the past 90 days were of women; up month-on-month from 35%. The data says Spotify, Acast and iHeart are the most-covered companies.

• Reddit is to start live audio Talks, much like Twitter or Clubhouse. The difference, says Arielle Nissenblatt in a twitter thread, is that Talks are promoted to people who follow subreddits on the topic your talk is about: which could be millions of people. There’s a form to fill out if you’re interested in hosting them.

• Message Heard has signed an audio partnership with The Kyiv Independent, Ukraine’s biggest independent English-language media outlet. It will focus on insider stories coming from within Ukraine told by those at the centre of the conflict.

• The Podcast Host review the Shure MV88+ microphone. If you listen to our podcast, it’s now our travel microphone (so you heard it for the last two weeks).

• 128 podcasts have so far run PSAs offering help and support for those supporting comprehensive reproductive care.

• TargetSpot has opened a dedicated LATAM office in Miami, led by Angelica Potes. The adtech company has also partnered with social music streaming app Resso, and the US’s Spanish Broadcasting System.

• We’ve updated our podcast market data slides to include last week’s Infinite Dial Canada, and Buzzsprout’s podcast platform data from June.

• Nick Hilton writes that podcasts are better than newsletters. Good job we do both!

• Courtney Kocak interviews James Cridland, Podnews’s Editor, in Podcast Bestie. He manages to get away amusing names for podcasts about fish and chips, and asks indie podcasters “not to join the gang”.

• Imagine if you could market your show to millions of people every day. The USPS is doing just that - Mailin’ It! is currently being promoted to everyone who gets USPS “informed delivery” emails. The promo just says “Get it wherever you listen to your podcasts”.

• How is your show doing? While we get podcasting play data, spare a thought for many TV producers, for whom play data from companies like Netflix or Paramount+ appears to be entirely unavailable, claims a story in Vulture.

• The top 25 US newspapers saw an average circulation loss of 12% in the year to March 2022.

Thank you to our many personal Patreon supporters, who from today we’ll mention below. We’re grateful to you for your support of our journalism. (You can join the list here).

Moves and hires

• Josh Woodhouse has been appointed as Regional Managing Director of Acast UK & Ireland. He’d been acting MD for a while; and has been at Acast for five years.
• Leo Goldingham has been promoted to UK Director of Sales for Acast UK & Ireland. He joined Acast in January 2018.
• Lorna Byrne has been promoted to Group Business Director for Acast UK & Ireland; she’s been with the company for four and a half years.
• Emma Morrisroe has also been promoted to Group Business Director for Acast UK & Ireland. She joined Acast in November 2020.

The Tech Stuff - with RSS.com

• DoggCatcher, an Android podcast app, is crashing on some valid Podcasting 2.0 feeds even though the RSS feeds are valid XML. The app, which has not been updated since October 2018, does not appear to cope with the enclosure part of the <liveItem> tag. It appears to be the only app that’s shown an issue.

• There is a new podcast API called Taddy, with more than two million podcasts in it. Offering a robust search of episodes as well as shows, and with webhooks to help keep shows updated, the API is used by podcast app Podyssey.

• The OPAWG list of podcast app user agents has had a number of updates over the past week.

• If you run Helipad to keep an eye on boost messages for your podcast, you might like to know an undocumented API that shows streaming sats. It looks like /api/v1/streams?index=8771&count=100&old=true - you’ll be wanting to change that index value to a sane value for your installation.

• Boostagram corner: “Enjoy getting the podcast news, cheers!” says @nixer, boosting us from Fountain. Thanks, too, to Jupiter Broadcasting for your boosts, and @carl6007 who says “Enjoying the boost life!”. “I love Podnews! James gives so much helpful information about the podcasting world. It’s helped me out a lot,” says @bisayapodcast, also boosting us from Fountain. Hit the boost button to send us some messages and boosts - the Fountain app is the easiest way to get going (and will even give you crypto to get started).

Podcast News - with Pushkin Industries

From Pushkin: Entrepreneurs and engineers describe the future they’re trying to build – and the problems they have to solve to get there. In What’s Your Problem?, former Planet Money host Jacob Goldstein breaks down the problems really smart people are trying to solve right now.

Blum is an audio fiction thriller which has topped the charts in Spain. A mockumentary format, it features popular actors from the country. It’s a branded podcast, set in Switzerland and supported by Switzerland Tourism; but has been one of the most popular podcasts in the country since it was released. It was produced by El Extraordinario.

The Program audio series has hit 400,000 downloads, 2.5 years after its release. It has joined the Rusty Quill network, who will distribute the series, sell advertising, and promote it to new audiences.

The Loyalists, a sci-fi audiodrama set in the year 2053 during the second American civil war, has just posted its season finale. It features a large cast of voice and theatre actors from Los Angeles, and released its first episode in 2017.

Think Fast, Talk Smart is new from Podium Podcast Co and Stanford Business Podcasts, and provides the tools, techniques, and best practices to help you communicate more effectively - how to send your message clearly when put on the spot, or write emails to get your point across.

Media Circus with Kim Goldman is new today from Kast Media, taking an inside look at private tragedy in the public eye, and explores how the media got it right, got it wrong, and got in the way. It promises a 'fresh, behind-the-scenes look into high profile crimes you think you know, told by the victims and their families who were thrust into the spotlight in their most vulnerable moments’.

Podcast ads in the wild

Another spot for some Audible advertising, though this - in Kilburn Lane, London NW9 - is rather the worse for wear. Google suggests it’s been there since February this year.

Advertising for podcasts help grow the whole medium - so if you’ve spotted any (or responsible for some), just hit reply and send us a nice picture.