New season of The Girlfriends from Novel and iHeart

• New from Novel and iHeartPodcasts today is The Girlfriends: Jailhouse Lawyer - the third season for the chart-topping show, produced by the UK-based Novel Audio. Anna Sinfield is the host - and the story features a woman who said her abusive boyfriend murdered a man right in front of her. She was terrified that she would be killed next. So how did she end up in prison for over a decade on a murder charge?

• UK audio awards the APAs from AudioUK has announced its Pay What You Can scheme, which offers free or discounted entry to the awards and to the ceremony for those who otherwise would not be able to do so due to financial constraints. The scheme supporters are Amazon Music and Wondery.

• Edison Research has announced a free webinar for the release of The Podcast Consumer 2025. The study uses data from the Infinite Dial, Share of Ear, and Edison Podcast Metrics. A key focus in the new report is the evolving definition of podcast “consumption,” exploring podcast viewing as well as listening.

• Good for you if you’re mixing complex drama or TV shows - NUGEN Audio has launched a new plugin called DialogCheck which allows you to visually check how clear the speech is in your latest production. It uses a metering standard from Fraunhofer called the Listening Effort Meter.

• In the UAE, the Dubai Press Club launched the second edition of its five-week Arab Podcast Programme.

• In Australia, NOVA Entertainment has announced an advertising and content partnership with Steven Bartlett’s FlightStory, including Diary of a CEO.

• The author Ryan Holiday has partnered with Backyard Ventures for exclusive representation of his podcasts “The Daily Stoic” and “The Daily Dad”, as well as newsletters and video content.

• Android Authority reviews YouTube Music as a podcast app.

• In Madrid, the winners of the Premios Ondas were announced. The Podcast of the Year went to La Ruina.

• In Canada, Pod The North asks is Canadian podcasting caught in a death spiral?

• Auddia, which promised to launch an ad-skipping podcast app in Nov 2023, but was running out of money after earning no revenue in 2024, has lost its CEO, Michael Lawless, who is retiring. Under new CEO Jeff Thramann, Auddia is to be restructured and turned into a subsidiary of an AI company.

The Tech Stuff - with RSS.com

• The Podcast Funding tag is the second-most widespread of the Podcasting 2.0 features, says John Spurlock, and is now in almost 70,000 podcast feeds. Here’s how it all works.

• Campfire is a new (?) German-language podcast app, which promises to help you “experience podcasts together. Join the community of your favourite podcast, chat with other fans and get exclusive bonus content – straight from the hosts too.” It seems to be a mix of a podcatcher and an Instagram-type client.

• Fountain has posted a new version of its podcast app, with a refreshed player design, video playback using alternate-enclosures (Podnews Daily supports this, but only a YouTube-style ‘fake video’), and support for Chromecast and AirPlay.

Tips and tricks - with Podcast Movement

• At the time of writing, our Editor has done 30 flights this year, and has apparently visited eighteen airports. What does he use when travelling to record podcasts? Podnews reader Sam Brake Guia asked us, so here’s the setup our Editor uses.

• Headliner shares how to take a break from podcasting and still grow.

Podcast News

PodBiz launches today, with a clear mission: to explore how podcasting actually makes money. Hosted by longtime industry experts Norma Jean Belenky and John Kiernan, PodBiz is a show about the business of podcasting with one key question at its core: “Where’s the money in podcasting?” PodBiz dives into the revenue models, platform plays, community and creator strategies driving the business of podcasting forward. The show is proudly hosted with support from Acast, with VP of Product Milly Botes featured as one of the first three guests.

Congratulations to daily walking podcast Walk the Pod which is celebrating 50,000 downloads. The show, born in lockdown, tempts you away from your desk to walk in nature for just ten minutes. “One day, at 4am, my brain woke me up to tell me that I should start a podcast, and take it for walks, like a dog,” says the creator, Rachel Wheeley.

The second season of Autocracy in America has just launched, hosted by Garry Kasparov, a former world chess champion and chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative. This week, Garry is joined by Anne Applebaum to discuss changes since Trump first took office; where the frontlines are in the war between freedom and tyranny; and what the free world can do to start fighting and, ultimately, win this war.

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