Wonder Media Network signs with WME

• The female founded and led podcast network Wonder Media Network has signed with talent agency WME, to help the network expand into books and television. Founded by journalist Jenny Kaplan and brand strategist Shira Atkins, WMN is an audio-first media company with a mission to amplify underrepresented voices. WME already represent PRX, Rusty Quill, Crooked Media and Malcolm Gladwell, and is owned by Endeavor, which also owns podcast network Endeavor Audio.

• The New York Times will sell advertising on This American Life’s podcast in 2021, according to their earnings call. Meredith Kopit Levien, who becomes CEO in September, said that the company sees The Daily as “a distribution channel for us to launch other great work into the world”, and has an average of 3.5m daily listeners.

• Libsyn’s CEO, Chris Spencer, has resigned. He’d worked at Libsyn for fifteen years, and will stay on as a Senior Advisor to the company. Last year, a bonus payment to Spencer was cited as one reason for a revolt by minority shareholders; the settlement in October installed a number of new board members who’d been publicly critical of the company: none of those are quoted in Libsyn’s release.

• The Carolina Panthers, a US football team from Charlotte NC, USA, produce eleven weekly podcasts, distributed all over the place including an Alexa skill. They use StreamGuys SGrecast tools, says a press release.

• Google Play Music’s podcast portal will no longer accept new podcasts “in the next few weeks”, according to an email from the company; and they’ll be removing it entirely later in the year. You should be using Google Podcasts Manager instead.

  
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• The Podcast Academy are holding an August Social a week today - via Zoom, naturally. Meanwhile, new research into Share of Audio Listening in Australia will be unveiled on August 26. (More Podevents)

• RAJAR, the UK’s audio measurement company, has issued a Listening In Lockdown report. The report focuses on radio, but says a third of podcast listeners listened to more podcasts in lockdown.

• Expanding yet further? Spotify are hiring for a Head of Audio Books. (More Podjobs)

  
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