Union agreement at Gimlet, The Ringer

• The writers and producers at Spotify’s Gimlet Media and Spotify’s The Ringer, two of the first podcast production companies to unionize with the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), both ratified their first collective bargaining agreements. The agreements mean, among other things, increases for salary minimums and a limit to the use of contractors; and should set a template for others.

• Congratulations to Buzzsprout, which now has 100,000 active podcasts, according to Buzzcast, the company’s podcast.

  • The podcast also discusses the company’s recent claim that Spotify is now bigger than Apple Podcasts for downloads.

• Westwood One publishes data from Edison Research’s Share of Ear. Podcasts are bigger than Pandora or Spotify in terms of share, the data says - with podcasting accounting for 25% of all ad-supported audio listening for 18-34s.

• 54% of podcast listeners say they’d try a new platform if it had an exclusive they’d be interested in: MRC Data has released their Podcast 360 report. We’re told to “keep episodes within an hour to keep listeners engaged and returning”.

• Today’s social audio app which looks eerily-familiar to the others is… Angle. On both iOS and Android, it’s run by a company based in Zürich, Switzerland.

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• Ricky Gervais has a new podcast coming out; it’ll be called “Absolutely Mental”, according to an article syndicated to US newspapers. The show isn’t yet on any podcast platform, and there’s no indication where or when it will launch.

  
  Sep 2 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.
  • Meanwhile, someone’s copied Gervais’s exclusive shows off the SiriusXM app and put them onto Anchor, complete with a “support this piracy podcast” button. This isn’t the first time.

• Our Editor is speaking at the Podfiesta Summit tomorrow (or later today) - it’s free to take part.

Tips and tricks

• Are high-profile guests a good way to grow your podcast audience? - Rachel Corbett suggests the answer is… “maybe”.

• Five Creatively Brave Ways To Make Your Podcast Sing is from Pacific Content’s Rehmatullah Sheikh. You can watch his full talk from Radiodays Asia, too.

Podcast News - With Toyota Untold

Toyota Untold puts the spotlight on a performance car icon, the legendary MR2 — how a maxed-out mid-engine changed the game.

Bryony Gordon’s Mad World is back for a third season. The show explores mental health and wellbeing, and will feature a number of UK guests, including presenter Fearne Cotton and Booker prize winner Douglas Stuart.