Wondery adds sports podcasts to Prime Video

• Another place to find new podcasts? Wondery is adding some of its sports podcasts to Amazon Prime Video, starting today. Wondery Chief Content Officer Marshall Lewy said that “being on Prime Video will help them connect with even more sports fans”. The shows continue on YouTube, Wondery+, and open RSS.

• Kast Media has filed for bankruptcy; the hearing will be on Apr 30. In July last year, we covered accusations that Kast Media wasn’t paying creators; in September, the story was covered by investigative YouTuber Coffeezilla. In part of the company’s bankruptcy filing, page 11 (and on) shows that Kast owes Theo Von $456,398 according to the filing; Jim Cornette and Brian Last appear to be owed $250,442. In total, the company owes $6.3mn.

• “We are losing our network to ad tech.” Writing on X, Lisa Laporte explains why podcasting is struggling. One reason, she says: advertisers are requiring an ever-wider set of technologies in podcast feeds, leading to unreliability and privacy issues.

• Radiodays Europe held a podcasting summit yesterday. The opening speaker was Maria Lopenz-Bokelberg, CEO of podcast production company Pool Artists. “Podcasting is a once in a century opportunity. We are the first generation of a completely new medium. Let’s make it like we want it to be.” Other speakers included Descript’s Arielle Nissenblatt, City University’s Brett Spencer, and Podnews’s Editor, James Cridland.

• The BBC has reached an agreement with Amazon Music to add its podcasts outside the UK. Subscribers to Amazon Prime will get more than fifty of the shows ad-free.

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• A Italian lifestyle podcast network is to launch next month. Sentire Media, which launches in April, is dedicated to “producing high quality podcasts with an Italian lifestyle focus”.

• Wondercraft AI now has emotions and accents.

The Tech Stuff - with RSS.com

• Building your own custom AI-generated podcast “is easy with Amazon’s AWS generative AI”. An Amazon employee has posted code that takes an RSS feed from AWS’s news releases and makes it into a co-hosted podcast with two AI personalities.

• How do you measure how good a transcript is? Apple suggests that the current measure, “Word Error Rate”, isn’t good enough - treating all words identically, even “um” and “er” - and proposes a new metric, “Human Evaluation Word Error Metric”, or HEWER.

• TrueFans has now shared more than $10,000 with podcasters and artists. The web app uses Value 4 Value to share money directly from the listener to the creator.

• Want new shows to listen to? Ryan Buening used the power of OPML files and Chat GPT to get suggestions of new shows to listen to.

Tips and tricks - with Memberful

• How To Get Your First 10,000 Podcast Downloads With a 3-Step Marketing Funnel (Kieran MacRae)

• How do podcasts make money? (RedCircle)

Moves and hires

• Tim Clarke, Audacy’s SVP of Digital Audio Content, is leaving the company at the end of the month. He won’t be replaced.

Podcast News - with Airwave

From the Airwave podcast network: What’s New With WIRED covers the big stories from the magazine and website - including, recently, ageism in the tech industry and the problem with regulating AI. Tired: waiting every week for a podcast. Wired: getting this one every day.

The biggest English-language podcast in Saudi Arabia has been signed by Podeo for hosting, distribution and monetisation. The Mo Show has interviewed more than a hundred guests from across the Kingdom.

NDA is a new German-language podcast from Der Spiegel; with the first season called “The Kasia Lenhardt Files”. Lenhardt was known for her participation in Germany’s Next Top Model and her relationship with soccer world champion Jérôme Boateng. She took her own life at the age of 25. Shortly before her death, she had signed an NDA that prohibited her from speaking publicly about her relationship with Boateng.

Behind the Mic with AudioFile Magazine hits episode 1,500 today. The podcast, which recommends the best in audiobook listening, will have a week’s set of special episodes introducing the show’s five rotating hosts.

What’s it like, trekking alone through 12,000 miles of the Canadian arctic for a hundred days? Polar explorer Mark Wood is currently there; and Radio SOLO 100 has his telephone number. Every day, travel writer Joe Sills and professional podcaster Meredith Hackwith Edwards will call him to learn more, as he attempts to set a world record.

We all have two lives - the second begins the moment we realize we have only one. So says storytelling podcast 2 lives, which covers stories of people overcoming severe challenges. In the new season, we hear from survivors of alcoholism, burnout, incarceration, PTSD, and even death.