YouTube announces dynamic ads and AI editing

• YouTube announced a number of new services, including ways to grab the best bits from long-form podcasts to automatically make shorts; enhance live streams; add AI editing; and enable dynamically-inserted sponsorship messages (so you can “remove the sponsorship when the deal is complete, resell the slot to another brand or eventually sell the same slot to multiple brands in different markets”).

  • The lack of dynamic ads has been a significant pain point for podcasters, who have been using them on other platforms. Rumours of this feature were reported by Podnews in March.

• Audioboom has announced that the company has now paid more than $325mn to creators worldwide. Over 13% of Audioboom’s revenue is now coming from video, it says: 60% of its creators are now producing video podcasts.

• Got a random email that looks like it’s from a big podcaster, wanting you on as a guest - and offering to pay? Be careful with that, says WMBF News - it’s a new podcast scam that could install dodgy software onto your computer.

• The Wall Street Journal reports: “This Podcast Is 11 Months Old. It Just Hired a President to Manage Ad Revenue.” The “podcast” is TBPN, a daily tech show. It expects to earn $5mn in revenue this year.

• Podigee is to add a number of Podcasting 2.0 features from Oct 1. The German podcast hosting company will add creator-led podcast recommendations and locations, and will support instant notifications of new episodes.

• London buses: you wait for ages, then two come at once. So it is with London video-enabled podcast studios; today’s new London video podcast studio (launched last night in a swish party) is a new, purpose-built facility at Blueprint Studios in Fulham.

• “The joy of a podcast is in listening to a human voice, and hearing what it has to say. Remove that, and there’s nothing left.” David Hoffman writes for Podnews today on Jeanine Wright’s “AI slop” podcast company, Inception Point AI - suggesting that it’s bound to fail.

• In Canada, Bell Media has renewed its partnership with iHeartRadio. Bell Media will sell advertising in the country for iHeart shows.

• Spotify’s free tier now lets you search for songs and play them right away.

• Another random use for OP3 - spotting how quickly users switch to iOS 26.

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People news

• Andy Cohen has signed a three-year extension with SiriusXM.

Tips and tricks

• Where can you find new listeners for your podcast? Social media is one of the most popular places - but almost nobody mentions LinkedIn. Tomas Loucky tells us that it’s a mistake to ignore the platform: “LinkedIn offers something rare: long-term, loyal listeners who come for the content and stay for the conversation.”

Podcast News

On 5 Daily Trivia Questions today, a themed episode about the career of Robert Redford.

When you want to understand your money, there’s no such thing as a stupid question - so RNZ money correspondent Susan Edmunds wants to demystify money and personal finance in her new podcast No Stupid Questions. If you have a stupid (or not-so stupid) question you need to ask, let us know by email or voice recording to questions@rnz.co.nz and your question might just get played out in the podcast. The answer might not be perfect – this isn’t personalised financial advice - but you will get good stuff you can use as you wrangle your money.

In Deeply Driven this week, the podcast studies Kent Taylor and his Texas Roadhouse Dream - made reality by, outworking everyone, putting people before profits, and proving that “crazy” ideas, like cutting ties off in the office and treating employees like family, can build a billion-dollar brand.