The podcasts listened-to most by shoppers for…

• Triton Digital has two podcast rankers in the US - one based on data, containing participating podcasts only (here, for October), but it’s just released a new set of data based on a survey (here, called Q2 but actually for Q3 2025). Triton’s survey-based Podcast Ranker also includes Demos+ data which ranks shows based on a number of demographic data points to help brands know where to advertise. The data is freely available; more on that data here.

  • It’s notable that NPR News Now is the #1 podcast according to Triton’s data, but only appears at #23 in their survey. That might be because NPR News Now is often the response from a smart speaker for “Play the latest news”, which means more downloads outside of podcast apps altogether.

• The iPhone app Castro has got significantly better over the past year, under new owners. If you were a former subscriber to Castro, you can grab a free month here, according to this announcement.

• In a blog post, Audacy focuses on some of “the next wave of podcast advertising” - instead of reading ads, the company says their hosts “create experiences”.

• Podswag, a company now owned by SiriusXM, gets coverage in a licensing website.

• If you use the Kagi search engine, or you use the Helium web browser, then you can now search Podnews directly - just start your search !podnews

The Tech Stuff - with RSS.com

• Spare a thought for Podsee, an AI tool to “Turn Podcasts into Actionable Insights”. After being forced to change payment supplier, every single paid subscriber must sign up again.

• If you’re using the ElevenLabs API for AI generated speech, here’s a nice cheat-sheet on all the features.

• Streaming payments mean, for the moment, payment using “Lightning”. Now - if you want stability in your lightning payments, you need to get your own dot-com; or, at least, use your own lightning address, not one provided to you by your current wallet. Here’s some code for an lnaddress proxy. We’ve now removed the older node addresses from all our podcasts.

• In the Podcasting 2.0 podcast this week, we learn that Podcast Index is currently costing around $1,000 a month to keep running. (There’s a donate button at the bottom of the website).

Podcast News

From SWI swissinfo.ch comes a new podcast that will serve as the ultimate handbook for Swiss citizens as they move and live abroad! Available in French and German, Ade merci, Schweiz sheds light on the realities and challenges of emigrating from Switzerland and offers a deep insight into the experiences of people who have moved or are planning to do so. The show will address questions like - What should you take with you when moving? How can families prepare? And how do people integrate into new communities?

Fresh from being a finalist in the Independent Podcast Awards, music history show Cassette Culture trails its second season, coming soon. The show will highlight the post-punk artists and DIY musicians of '79-'80 who built their own independent global network.