Revenue more than doubles in a year, says podcast company

• In an update, RedCircle says that in H1/23, its host-read ad platform revenue more than doubled year-on-year. The company closed Q2/23 in profit. It plans to invest further in its platform later this year.

• Podcast spend in Australia for Q2/23 was up by 64% year-on-year, according to ARN’s iHeartRadio Australia and Magellan AI. The top 3 advertisers were health insurance company NIB, McDonald’s, and Amazon.

• For a time yesterday, Substack was blocking popular podcast app Overcast, and the Podcast Index, from accessing shows hosted on the platform. The shows are hosted using the Cloudflare CDN - “Do not host podcast feeds behind Cloudflare”, says Overcast’s developer Marco Arment, before explaining what settings to use if you do.

• Tink Media and The Democracy Group have announced media training and podcast placement services to authors, scholars and thought leaders in politics and beyond.

• Podshorty will “turn any YouTube video into an AI-summarized podcast”, joining many others doing audio summary tools.

• SquadCast is making an announcement live on YouTube today (2pm NY, 11am LA). “It’s one of the biggest announcements we’ve ever made,” the company says.

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Moves and hires

• Acast has announced a number of new appointments in the US. Chief Business Officer for Acast globally will be Greg Glenday, joining from Lightbox. Ricardo Neto is VP of Sales, US, joining from Spotify. Gabriella Gregoris has been promoted to Group Business Director of National Performance. Tiffany Ashitey is now Interim US Managing Director. Stephen Smyk joins Acast’s US Advisory Board; he’d been at Veritone One since the acquisition of Performance Bridge, where he was CEO.

Tips and tricks - with Pod Predictor by Coleman Insights

• Katy Hearne-Church is the latest guest on Podcast Bestie - sharing how she grew not only a large podcast following, but a large Patreon community that helps support her show.

• Joe Casabona asks Are You Optimizing Your Podcast Name for Discovery?

• Science says… spell your name correctly, and people are 34% more likely to buy from you. The same probably goes for podcast names (and makes them easier to search anyway).

Podcast News - with Airwave

Part of the Airwave podcast network: TechCrunch Daily Crunch gives you the biggest tech headlines in a flash - each episode is around five minutes long and updated every day from one of the biggest tech sites in the world.

Dear Alana launched yesterday - the new podcast from Tenderfoot TV. It’s a true crime podcast which focuses on Alana Chen, an aspiring nun who also underwent conversion therapy and pastoral counsel for more than seven years after confessing to her priest that she was attracted to women. The truth of her story is investigated by Simon Kent Fung, who had a shockingly similar experience.

For You Pod is new from the Sonar Network this week - a new podcast for people who love/hate TikTok and don’t really understand why. Comedian and content creator, Sam Sferrazza, and his best friend Lucas, attempt to unpack the latest trends and horrors of the world of TikTok.

Podcast promotion in the wild

Sheletta Brundidge, the owner of podcast production company ShelettaMakesMeLaugh.com, spent $15,000 of her podcast company profits to help promote five women entrepreneurs for Black Business Month by hiring a billboard to help promote them, near the US Bank Stadium in downtown Minneapolis MN. Fun fact: she signs her emails “Boss Lady”.