Anchor 'doubles the number of money-making podcasts'

• Podcast host Anchor claims that the number of podcasts carrying ads doubled last month, thanks to Anchor Sponsorships. The company is also keen to point out that they power 40% of all new podcasts (and it’s estimated that they have 70,000 shows). However, according to recent data analysis seen by Podnews, over 93% of Anchor shows have already “podfaded”, and haven’t had a new episode in the last month. (Question: is it good to have over 60,000 abandoned shows from Anchor in podcast directories?)

• What bitrate is everyone else using? And how loud are they ? To get a view of the industry, we’re now monitoring technical parameters like bitrate, filetype and LUFS values for recent podcasts. This page will update daily; we check a new podcast every hour. Thanks to our supporters for helping us do this.

• Podtrac has released their monthly US podcast publisher rankings for December 2018. December’s a rogue month for stats, and most publishers saw fewer downloads; podcast downloads for the top ten publishers did show a 56% increase year-on-year (although we’re not sure how reflective this is of the industry as a whole).

  
  Aug 9 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Podtrac’s current #4 podcast producer, Wondery is the focus of a Poynter article. Of interest: three Wondery podcasts are now available on American Airlines flights.

• Spotify has added podcast recommendations - “you might also like” - to their podcast pages for some users. This was discovered by James of MySpotifyIdeas, a man who Spotify should be employing.

• Podcast host Buzzsprout has added a redesigned podcast player for people who host with them.

  
  Aug 9 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Parcast have announced a new slate of weekly podcasts, and an expansion of their fiction podcast Mind’s Eye. The press release also claims 200% increases in downloads in 2018, and the company now boasts 18 writers and producers.

• The New Statesman wants us to stop listening to podcasts.

  
  Aug 9 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• The iHeart Podcast Awards are being held on Friday in Burbank CA, USA. Some nominees have apparently already been informed that they’ve not won. Still, saves them a trip.

• Competition: Røde are giving away podcast stuff.

• Job: Podcast and Video Editor for Glitch in New York NY, USA.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 9 2023

Podcasts

Savvy Talk is a new podcast focusing on communication strategies and trends for businesses in the Middle East.