Podcasts in HBO's new app, and in a new kids app from Spotify

• HBO Max, a new pay-TV service, will feature podcasts in its mobile app, says Cnet, “so subscribers can listen to, for example, a podcast about the HBO series Chernobyl while on the go.”

• Spotify has a new app: Spotify Kids launched yesterday in Ireland as a beta, and contains music and podcasts curated for children aged between 3-10. It’s for Premium customers only, and contains no ads.

• Google pulled all ads from the podcast app Podcast Addict in early September, claiming a violation based on the podcast app “hosting explicit content”. It doesn’t, of course; it’s a podcast app: but the presence of adult podcasts in the service was enough to pull virtually all of the ads for the free version of the app. Google has since restored the ads.

  • The screenshot in the above story would appear to indicate that the app achieves somewhere in the region of 210m ad impressions per month (263M for the period shown). The typical earning from an AdMob banner is anywhere from $0.15 to $1.50 per thousand; assuming it’s $0.15, that could represent $32,000 in monthly revenue from ads. Contacted by Podnews, the developer of Podcast Addict declined to comment to our nosy enquiries about revenue, which is fair enough.
  
  Aug 18 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• There’s a new academic paper on podcasts: “Podcasting as Social Scholarship”, including “recommendations for social work scholars, practitioners, and leaders related to the effective use of podcasting to increase the public impact of scholarship and research.” Nele Heise links to it, noting that it’s behind a paywall: it’ll cost $20 to access.

• The shortlist for the UK’s Audio Production Awards have been announced. The awards night will be on November 28th.

• Podfund have announced two new creators in their portfolio. The Locked On Podcast Network, and If These Ovaries Could Talk, a podcast about LGBTQ families.

  • The founder of the Locked On Podcast Network, David Locke, spoke with Podcast Movement. The network has 130 individual podcasts for local US sports teams.

Podnews’s Editor is in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain on the evening of Monday November 4, and in Prague, Czechia on the evening of Thursday November 7. Mail james@crid.land if you’re there, too.

Podcasts

That’s Incredible - stories to share with kids is a new podcast from Australia’s Mamamia. “We’ve been getting a lot of emails from parents saying it’s doing what it was supposed to do… entertain the kids in the car,” say the producers. (Omny Studio)

The Do You Even Blog podcast has, as its guest this week, Podnews’s editor, James Cridland. The show’s called “Podcasting, Google, and why audio reigns supreme”. (Podbean)

The producer and co-host of The Successful Encore Career Podcast has been announced as the winner of AARP Ohio’s Disrupt Aging Award. Congratulations to them! (Captivate)

Born and Raised is back for a second season - a six part series about love and dating from children of immigrants in Canada. (HuffPost Canada / Soundcloud)

Credits: A little snippet of extra music in our podcast today is from Loyalty Freak Music - we used “Hello Michael” - as well as our bespoke Podnews package from Devaweb.