The Australian ABC adds shows to Spotify

• Australia’s largest podcaster, the ABC, is to put 23 of its most popular podcasts onto Spotify in a six-month trial, after placing Coronacast on the platform earlier this year. The ABC’s Cath Dwyer told Podnews: “It’s a big opportunity for the ABC, and we’re really excited to reach audiences that might not find us on other platforms.” On Spotify, some shows will carry advertising, like YouTube and other platforms; revenues will help fund content making, and shows continue to be ad-free in the ABC’s own apps. In total, the broadcaster, which is government funded, has more than 175 shows.

• On Monday, the total number of podcasts in Apple Podcasts hit 1.6m, according to MyPodcastReviews. In October, 97,181 podcasts were added, and 13,860 removed, from Apple’s directory.

• As Spotify apparently investigates podcast subscriptions, Luminary is moving in to their home country - it’s now available in Sweden, as well as Denmark, Norway and Finland, for 99kr or €9.99 a month. Sweden is one of the top five countries for podcast listening, according to research.

• Calling US and UK students - Spotify has launched Next Wave, a search for “emerging voices who will shape the future of podcasting and culture”. Students get to take part in a virtual podcast seminar hosted by podcaster JaackMaate, and a three month trial of Soundtrap for Storytellers, Spotify’s online editing service.

• Young Canadians shouldn’t feel left out, either: the Hot Docs Podcast Career Accelerator has been announced, offering new Canadian podcasters between 18-34 the chance to grow their skills, gain invaluable industry knowledge and make lifetime connections at the Hot Docs Podcast Festival. It’s free to take part.

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• The BBC has posted incomplete statistics about their podcasts over the last quarter. “Data for platforms other than BBC Sounds is not available this quarter, so it’s not possible to provide figures for third party, global downloads for this period,” they say. Any remaining Perl programmers please report in - Aunty needs you.

• Beasley Media Group has added its podcasts and radio stations to Entercom’s RADIO&middit;COM platform. The broadcaster has been focusing on local podcasting initiatives.

• Podcast Movement has shared a few virtual networking sessions on their website.

• We mentioned Riverside·fm’s launch the other day - an easy to use platform for recording remote podcasts. We missed the fulsome praise from none other than Hillary Clinton.

• “While big brands are coming into the space and driving CPMs higher, there’s more going on than meets the eye.” says Oxford Road’s Anna Sunshine. (It sounds like some ad partners are still using 5-minute windows to calculate audience levels instead of 24 hours).

• A new Yellowtec microphone comes complete with other bits of professionally-produced audio too, courtesy of audio imaging company Benztown. Here’s an ad masquerading as a press release. Don’t think we didn’t notice, Chachi.

Spotify’s purchase of Megaphone

• Nick Hilton suggests it will erode CPM revenue for podcast creators.

• “Increased targeting, measurement granularity, and ad inventory management ease could fundamentally ruin what made podcast advertising great — and make it as screwed up as the rest of digital advertising” - Nick Quah, Hot Pod

We asked you what you thought:

• “I think we need to take a step back and really understand how many podcasts are actually accepting advertising. It isn’t a large number; but it will probably start to climb with new technology being implemented and used effectively. From the PM Virtual sessions hosted by networks and ad agencies in the monetization track, it sounded like they realize how this medium works best, for their clients and the listeners. There can be a happy marriage between the technology and effective advertising/marketing. We may just see some rough patches as we move forward.” - Brett Johnson, Circle270Media

• “My favourite thing about podcasting is that it is so decentralised and accessible. If Spotify, making all these purchases, is going to increase innovation while maintaining the accessibility of podcasting, count me in. But if they are trying to control the ecosystem, then I reckon it’s bad news. Podcasting is for everyone and I hope it stays that way.” - Alex Williamns

• “For companies that have a hard time to break even it is very enticing to take the money and run, since monetization of this market is not a given. Scalability is still an issue because people seem to prefer own-language productions - which is different from the huge video on demand market that is focused on English for most of the world outside Asia. It’s not yet clear if this is good news or bad news, all the more because what might be good for podcast creators might be terrible for podcast investors and vice versa.” - A secret Podnews reader

Tips and tricks

• Is the Zoom PodTrak P4 any good? Mark Asquith gives his a review. He uses the word “fantastic” a lot.

Podcast News - with Vurbl

On Vurbl Voices, Paul talks with the co-founders of KidNuz about the audio news format, storytelling, crafting your voice, distributing to the classroom and opportunities around audio for kids and families. Listen on Vurbl

Live from Washington, this is SPR - Superhuman Public Radio. Frankly we don’t understand what’s going on here, but we were sent a press release which looks super important.

The Aus Media Report looks at the media in Australia and beyond. Our Editor was a special guest last week, but this week looks at the Australian radio industry.