SXM Media is #1 for podcasts

• SXM Media is, once more, #1 for podcasts according to Edison Podcast Metrics data for the 12 months ending Q3/22. Spotify is down to #2, while iHeartMedia is #3. The data was produced by surveying 11,675 listeners from across the US.

  • SXM Media is truly out of this world - the company’s owner, SiriusXM, has just ordered the company’s 12th and 13th satellites from Maxar - that’s them above.

• In Sweden, consumers are expected to have spent SEK150m ($14.5m) this year on podcast subscriptions, and the podcast ad market is worth SEK360m ($34.5m), according to research by Mediavision and the Institutet för Reklammätningar. (If the US market was the same, by population that would suggest $319m subscription revenues, and $759m ad revenue.)

• Today, Sounds Profitable releases the first-ever study of brand safety and suitability from the listeners’ perspective, called Safe and Sound. The webinar starts at 1pm ET.

• Pocket Casts has raised its annual subscription price - by 41 cents a month. The annual price changes from $9.99 to $14.99 USD.

• RadioPublic Pro is to discontinue. For $12/month, the product offered enhanced podcast websites, an enhanced embedded player, and a tipping service. The free service RadioPublic Basic will continue; the company has been owned by Acast since Feb 2021.

• Audacity 3.2.2 is now available: the newest version of this popular free audio editor enables the use of VST2 plugins as realtime effects.

• Double Elvis has announced a new music history podcast, History Listen: Rock, which will launch in early January. It’ll be hosted by Grammy-winning artist St Vincent.

• The finalists of the Signal Awards have been announced. You can vote for the listener’s choice award on the website until Dec 22.

• Audio ad company TargetSpot is expanding to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Morocco.

• After announcing yesterday it was leaving NOVA, DM Podcasts announced today a new partnership with LiSTNR.

• In Manchester in the UK, a podcast is to be made by arts organisation Art with Heart, working with Manchester artists, primary schools, and Manchester City Council.

• A lot of people want to write us guest posts about what the future of podcasting is; but we thought we’d ask Chat GPT to write something instead. The AI program tells us that we can look forward to more audio books, increased consumption using smart speakers, and unsusprisingly, more use of artificial intelligence.

Moves and hires

• Kathy Doyle is to leave Macmillan Publishers: she had worked for the company for eleven years, as VP of Podcasting, and more recently VP of Content Development. She will focus on consultancy, starting with a podcast strategy for Hire Heroes USA.

• Claus Thune has joined Podimo as Global Director of Programming. Thune worked for nearly ten years for iTunes and Apple Music, and joins from Epidemic Sound: he’d also worked at Carlsberg.

Tips and tricks - with Blinkist: powerful ideas in fifteen minutes

• In How 9 Podcast Growth Strategies Yielded a 535% Increase in Downloads, Andi Last shares the strategies they do - and don’t - use.

• Podcastpage’s 5 Podcasting Tips for a Successful Show start, as you might expect, with “get a podcast website” - but also give other tips, including tips on how to organise your workflow.

Podcast News - with Campaign Legal Center

Flex & Froomes on CADA, a podcast and radio show from an Australian radio station, has hit one million downloads within the first six months. The show has also been recognised by podcast awards and by Vogue magazine.

Irish horror fiction podcast Petrified starts up again in January, with some additions to the cast list - actor Cecil Baldwin, best known for voicing Cecil Palmer in the cult hit podcast Welcome to Night Vale, and New York filmmaker Larry Fessenden, director of films such as Wendigo and The Last Winter and actor in Broken Flowers and Bringing Out the Dead amongst others, are the first American actors to join the cast of the award winning podcast.

Acast and Self Financial have launched Self., a six part branded podcast series. In each episode, Money Mindset Coach Jacent Wamala will highlight real stories from diverse voices about challenging their own relationships with money to build a better future for themselves, their loved ones and their communities.

Undetermined is new from Tenderfoot TV and Resonate Recordings - an investigative podcast into the case of 42-year-old Jessica Easterly Durning, who went missing from her New Orleans home in 2019 and whose death is still officially classified as 'undetermined’.

Podcast ads in the wild

This billboard for The News Agents, on the Euston Road underpass in central London, was shared by the podcast’s publisher, Global. It is also one of the UK’s leading outdoor media companies, including all the advertising on the London Underground. Global owns a number of radio stations including Capital Radio: which was originally based almost exactly on this spot (well, 50 feet to the north) on Euston Road, when it started broadcasting in 1973.