Jad Abumrad leaves Radiolab

• Jad Abumrad is stepping aside as host of Radiolab. He’s been hosting the show for almost twenty years. His co-host, Robert Krulwich, retired in 2019. Nick Quah writes that Radiolab was, for him, a “gateway podcast”, and it’s probably no over-exaggeration to suggest that Radiolab has influenced a generation of podcasters and sound designers.

• Pod People is to launch original podcasts with TikTok stars. Billed as “not celebrity interview shows”, the podcasts are scripted, immersive soundscapes with original characters.

  • The company is also to launch “The Pod Pipeline”, a source of original podcast ideas which will be sent to producers, buyers and distributors monthly.

• After a successful trial, Acast has released its subscription product, Acast+, to all its podcasters. It allows podcasters to charge for shows, which will be made available “across most podcast listening apps”. They’ve worked with 25 podcasters across eight countries on the tool, which saw “tens of thousands” of new subscribers, and one show converted 7% of their audience to paying subscribers.

  • Acast was announced as a launch partner for Spotify’s Open Access subscription tool in July last year; but Acast+ doesn’t work with the tool. Memberful and Libsyn’s Glow were also announced as launch partners; but have also yet to roll out support. We hear whispers that Spotify Open Access requires mandatory caching of audio, which cedes considerable control away from podcast hosting companies.

• Spotify will remove Neil Young’s catalogue, after the singer asked for the company to either remove Joe Rogan’s “vaccine misinformation” from the platform, or remove his music. Spotify claim to have “removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to COVID since the start of the pandemic”, though not Joe Rogan’s.

• Spotify is partnering with Stripe to power their own paid subscription platform. Stripe’s release notes that Spotify used Stripe to launch their Podcast Subscriptions product last year; the company is using the tool to help podcasters get paid (using Stripe Connect) as well as receive payments.

• The Sun claims an exclusive that Spotify is to take Harry and Meghan’s $25m podcast project “into their own hands” by hiring a host of in-house producers to “finally deliver their content”. Their source appears to be this job posting at Gimlet, which says “we’re currently assembling a show team that will build and launch a new original show with Archewell featuring the voices of high profile women” (not sure that’s Harry). In July, Archewell hired Rebecca Sananes as Head of Audio, reporting to Ben Browning, Archewell’s Head of Content. Content from Archewell was promised in 2021, but it’s not the only missing Spotify show.

  
  Sep 11 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.
  • A Spotify “multi-series deal” with Paul Bae, announced in a blaze of press in February last year, is not going to happen. Bae says: “I walked away from this deal last year. It was purely a business/creative decision.”

• PodMov Daily links to research from Spotify’s R&D division about recommendations and promotion for less-streamed podcasts.

• Podcast editing tool Descript has released a set of new features, including ways to make shareable video, faster rendering, ownership transferral and bug fixes.

• Audacy suggests that the ideal length of ads is 30 seconds; the survey was of radio listeners, though.

  
  Sep 11 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Podchaser has partnered with Audacy on podcasting insights. “As Audacy can view data that Podchaser has collected on other podcasts, it can then be seamlessly shown that Audacy’s categories of content measure up to and at times exceed others.”

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Sep 11 2023

• Dylan Alcott, Australian tennis player, Paralympian and host of the ListenABLE podcast, has been given the title of Australian of the Year 2022.

Moves and hires - with Pod People

• Jad Abumrad is stepping aside as host of Radiolab (see above).

This link is no longer available, as at Sep 11 2023
• Ron Gaskill is to join SiriusXM as Director of Communications, with particular focus on Stitcher podcasts. He moves from Blake Zidell & Associates.

This link is no longer available, as at Sep 11 2023
• Michael Mignano, the co-founder of Anchor, appears to now be called “Global Head of Talk Verticals” at Spotify. He had been “Head of Podcaster Mission” for a while, and has also variously been called “Head of Podcasts, Live and Video”, and “Head of Creation Platform”.

This link is no longer available, as at Sep 11 2023
• Daniel Angarita has been named as Director of Podcasts for Mythical Entertainment. He joins from Studio71.

Tips and tricks - with Podpage

• How to plan a whole year of podcast content in a day - Mark Steadman suggests looking at the calendar, or the cycles of your audience.

Podcast News - with Quill

Produced by Quill: The Great Indoors How has technology changed around the world? Join Matt Roberts from Amdocs as he discusses how human technological adoption habits are evolving as a result of the COVID-19 Pandemic, and how we’re rediscovering the magic of technology as a necessary result of being indoors.

Ghosthoney’s Dream Machine is new from Pod People as part of their original set of podcasts from TikTok stars, above. - read more