RSS tool falls over; hundreds of podcasts fall offline

• FeedPress, an RSS analytics service, spent at least six hours offline yesterday, making many podcast episodes unavailable. The company hasn’t posted to its Twitter or status page, and did not respond for comment; but an email seen by Podnews blamed “multiple incidents, first hardware then network”. It costs $48 per year.

  • One customer of Feedpress is Pacific Content; but they saw far less downtime. Dan Misener explains how they were able to mitigate for Feedpress’s problems. He adds: “If you don’t own your feed, you don’t own your show.”
  • Allan Tépper released an e-book last week, Branded RSS Podcasting: the definitive guide which goes into this in more detail. It’s currently available at 50% off.

• Voxnest’s latest “Spotify vs Apple” data, which we reported on yesterday, has David Tvdon from Slovakia reaching for his own stats: while Voxnest reports Spotify is #1, he thinks the opposite. However, Czech Radio’s data shows Spotify has overtaken Apple. The growth of Spotify is also highlighted in this report from WARC.

  • Spotify has bought two popular German-language podcasts, Herrengedeck and Gemischtes Hack. New episodes will be exclusive to Spotify.

• Amazon is trying to produce more Spanish-language podcasts. Prisa Group, a large Spanish media company, has rejected a deal with the company, which would have put a daily podcast into Audible.

• A slew of new shows were announced yesterday by different publishers at Podfront, which took place in The San Francisco Museum of Art. An embargoed press release covers the announcements.

• Podtrac have released their Top 10 Podcast Publishers data for August. The data is opt-in. NPR remains the #1 global podcaster, while iHeartRadio has achieved the #1 spot for US unique audience, with figures that increased 26% apparently due to the return of Ron Burgundy. The figure includes 258 active iHeart shows monitored by Podtrac.

  
  Aug 16 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.
  • In a statement, iHeartRadio said it “has seen a more than 300% increase in unique podcast visits year-over-year, far surpassing the growth of any other major podcast publisher on the ranker.” The increase is partially attributable to iHeart’s purchase of Stuff Media in September 2018.
  • ESPN heralded their record podcast audience of 7.1 million, saying that they’ve seen an increase of 49% year-on-year.
  
  Aug 16 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• CBC/Radio-Canada and the BBC World Service have started cross-promoting podcasts. Collaboration started this week between Tai Asks Why and 30 Animals That Made Us Smarter. The BBC describe this as “the beginning of a showcasing pilot with other public service partners”, though the CBC have been working with others, including Australia’s ABC, for four years.

• The NAB Show New York will feature different sessions on podcasts (October 16-17), and their NAB Show Podcast will launch a new season next week “featuring prominent speakers and highlighting NAB Show New York-related themes”.

• French newspaper Le Monde has launched three podcast series, and report that their podcasts help sell digital subscriptions.

• Kate Cocker, a UK-based presenter coach, shares the secret to stop saying “um”.

Podcasts

Spreaker Prime: Black Widow Podcast is a scripted podcast that investigates dating as a millennial. It promotes positivity around sexual experiences, especially the experiences of women, whatever end of the sexual spectrum they might be on. They’re using Spreaker Prime to earn money and cut their hosting costs.

Ranker, a website that lets people rank “just about everything”, has partnered with ART19 to launch a podcast. Deadtime Stories speaks directly to the more than 6 million monthly readers of Ranker’s Horror channel Graveyard Shift.

iHeartMedia and MSNBC have launched Modern Ruhles. The press release promises that Stephanie Ruhles will discuss topics of masculinity, #MeToo, political correctness, privilege and more.

I Know Dino, a podcast that “dives into the latest dinosaur related news”, will release its 250th episode next week. It’s hosted by husband and wife team Garret Kruger and Sabrina Ricci, “ who celebrated their love for each other and dinosaurs with a dinosaur themed wedding”. (Libsyn)

ESPN UK has signed “Britain’s foremost American sports expert” to present The Nat Coombs Show. The podcast is supported by Paddy Power, a UK betting chain.

Something isn’t right in Hext, Texas. All My Hexes is a horror podcast investigating the sinister conspiracies and unearthly horrors of a Texas oil boom town. It’s recorded live every two weeks at Knight Watch Games, a gaming store in San Antonio TX.

Produced in Spanish from Chile, Las Raras starts their fourth season today, with stories of migration, online harassment, and natural disasters. They were the only Spanish-language project selected for the first round of the Google Podcasts Creator Program; the podcast tells stories of freedom about people who resist norms and challenge the status quo.