Trouble in Paradiso: podcast company goes bankrupt

• Podcast production company Paradiso Media has started bankruptcy proceedings in a French court. The company was founded in June 2019, and acquired competitor Binge Audio in May 2023: at the time it had 170 shows and 50 employees, based in Paris, Los Angeles and New York. Paradiso raised $5.9mn in investment in Sept 2021. We understand that Binge Audio, still a separate company, continues its operations.

• The majority of women in the US are sports fans, according to the Female Fans Sports Audio Report from Edison Research, which was released last week. The research, with SiriusXM Media and GroupM, discovered that a third of them listen to sports audio each week.

• The Triton Digital Podcast Ranker for June was released. Downloads for the period were down 2.2%. Audioboom re-entered the top 5. iHeart is #1 sales network with average weekly downloads of 66mn.

• iHeart’s average weekly downloads in the Podtrac ranker for June are 78mn, 18% higher than Triton’s number, despite both solutions being IAB Certified. Over the last month, trying to understand why they’re different, Podnews spoke to Podtrac, Triton, iHeart and the IAB - and learnt:

  • Not all iHeart shows are measured by both Podtrac and Triton. Triton works by logfile analysis, Podtrac works by redirects, and not all shows support both. (Triton doesn’t report the total number of iHeart shows that it measures).
  • Additionally, Podtrac measures a calendar month; while Triton measures a four-week period. (June, as one example, has an extra weekend and three fewer weekdays than May this year, which changes average numbers substantially).

• The Asia Podcast Awards are due to close by the end of this week - so if you’ve not yet entered, get to it! After they close, listeners will be able to vote for their favourites in the People’s Choice category.

• The most popular podcasts in Singapore are educational shows, according to research from On Device. It claims 55% of Singaporeans listen monthly to podcasts. Meanwhile, in the UK, comedy podcasts are the most popular, with 61% listening monthly.

  • The data is based on 800 respondents in each country, and show significantly higher reach numbers than other research. By press time, the company hadn’t told us how they were recruited.

• In Spain, the Podcast Days Awards are now open for entry. You’ve until Sep 8.

People News

• James Scott is to step down from the Across The Pond Sports Network.

The Tech Stuff - with RSS.com

• How many active podcasts are there? As above, there are 322,004 (defined as any feed with at least one episode over the last 30 days). Podnews has kept daily data from The Podcast Index over the last 18 months (JSON), and while that number has decreased year-on-year, it hasn’t decreased by much. Interesting to note both the low-point (the end of the Christmas holidays) and the high-point (mid-March for some reason).

• Google has a new AI tool called Illuminate, which takes a scientific paper and turns it into a five minute (dual-hosted) “podcast”. Youssef Ismail gives it a go, and posts some examples.

• Always interesting to check in on our page showing podcasters switching their show to a different podcast host. Over the last thirty days, the biggest winners are Megaphone, Spotify for Podcasters, and Acast. The biggest losers are Spreaker, SoundCloud and Libsyn.

Tips and tricks - with Memberful

• Podcast Marketing Magic looks at the metrics that matter when you launch a new show.

Podcast News

Good Game with Sarah Spain has launched from iHeartPodcasts, as part of the company’s new Women’s Sports Audio Network. We’re promised the biggest stories, stakes, stars and stats to help fans keep up with women’s teams, leagues and athletes.

How To Write A Book is the first podcast from Elizabeth Day’s production company Daylight Productions, and is part of a new set of shows she is calling a “Podclass”. Hosted by best-selling author, Sara Collins, leading agent, Nelle Andrew, and powerhouse publisher, Sharmaine Lovegrove, the 12-week series guides listeners from conception to completion.

A major new true-crime investigative podcast launches today from the BBC: World of Secrets looks at a series of brutal shootings in 1980s South Africa by a private security guard. The series will will take a deeper dive into the wider socio-political context at play at the time of these murders and features extensive interviews with those affected.

Between 1960 and 1980, thousands of Pakistani families would communicate between Pakistan and the UK using cassette recordings - which have since been stored in attics, suitcases and garages across the UK. As part of South Asian Heritage Month, Tape Letters has been released by Modus Arts - transcribing and presenting some of these cassettes, and interviews with the people who had received them.