Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson has a new podcast

• Run to the hills! Run for your lives! Psycho Schizo Espresso is a brand new podcast from Oxford University psychologist and author Dr Kevin Dutton and Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson. The first epsiode, unraveling 666, the number of the beast, is now available; it’s produced by Pod Prod.

• You’re one in a billion - new data available by subscription from Omdia suggests that this year the number of global monthly podcast listeners will reach 1 billion people for the first time. Global podcast ad revenue for 2021 will be $1.9 billion.

• Podcast host Captivate has unveiled AMIE, its “audio monetization and integration engine”. The dynamic content insertion system allows pre, post and midroll slots to be added, as well as an “ad-painter”, to help paint out older, baked-in ads to replace with dynamic content. The tool is released to all Captivate podcasters on Nov 16. (Podnews’s Editor is an advisor).

• Podcast ad spending is up 87% over the same period last year, according to Magellan AI, which has released its Podcast Advertising Benchmark Report for Q3/2021. Ad load also increased, from 5.2% in Q2 to 5.8% in Q3.

  
  Sep 8 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Libsyn’s AdvertiseCast has released average CPM rates for October, showing an average of $23.30. The data is up from September’s $23.13, and up 92.3% year-on-year.

• Wonkybot has released a show for grown-ups, Superhero Confidential, a short-form daily scripted podcast which shares the same universe as the company’s teen podcasts. The company shifted to exclusive Apple Podcasts paid subscription in June, but say it “heard from so many non-Apple parents and kids” following the decision, it’s now added an ad-supported feed available everywhere. “When you get fan art asking you to please bring Tara back… well, we had to do something lest we become an Evil Empire!”, we’re told.

• Virtual Session 2 at PodFest Origins starts today; at 11.00am Eastern today, James Cridland, Podnews’s Editor, speaks about the opportunities for podcasters outside the US.

• RSS.com Podcasting has partnered with Podbox in Mexico (en español) to co-produce, distribute and monetise new podcasts in the Spanish language. Podbox has studios in La Condesa.

• On Twitter, Arielle Nissenblatt suggests a great idea for independent podcast apps.

• Africa Podcast Day 2022 has been announced for Feb 12, 2022. They’re looking for session ideas and commercial partners.

• African Roundup has been awarded a grant from the Celo Community Fund. African Roundup is a Johannesburg-based podcast company tracks progress of Africa’s emerging digital, tech, and innovation scene; the grant is “intended to support a monthly blockchain-themed UNAJUA Podcast learning series, produced and published in multiple languages”.

• Mumbai’s Kuku FM, a music and podcast platform, is currently raising between $15-20m in a funding round. Meanwhile Florida’s Relevnt has raiseed $2.5m in seed funding for its “group messaging platform that takes a fresh stake in the podcasting experience”.

  
  Sep 8 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• 85% of podcast listeners in Saudi Arabia use Apple Podcasts, says a survey by a podcast network. 32% prefer Anghami.

• Thank you to Michael Jones who shares his Pocket Cast stats with us. He’s saved ten years using variable speed (he listens to us at 3x speed). Yikes.

• Podnews’s news ranker for October shows Spotify overtaking Apple Podcasts, with Acast reaching #3, in terms of total mentions in our newsletter. Adam Curry is the second most-talked-about person in our ranker, which also includes overall gender balance data.

Feliz Día de los Muertos, and Happy Diwali! A reminder that Podnews doesn’t do daylight savings, so if your clocks went forward a few weeks ago (hello, Sydney and Melbourne), went back on Sunday (hello, Europe) or will go back soon (hello, USA and much of Canada), Podnews will shift in time accordingly.

The Tech Stuff - with RSS․com

• Careful of emails like this one from Facebook - this is from a random website in India wanting to add our podcast to their Facebook Page.

• The Podcast Index team has been working on cross-app comments, allowing podcast listeners to comment on podcast episodes, and view others’ comments, across a number of different apps. The tool uses open, non-centralised technologies. You can join in the conversation on their Mastodon website.

• Per-word SRT files can help things like clipping tools. It’s possible, but expensive, to do that with tools like Amazon Transcribe: our Editor went playing with their tools to work out how.

• Boostagrams this week include an anonymous one saying “Maybe Facebook UA misattribution to Apple will finally be the catalyst to fix this issue.” (2112 using Breez), and Dave Jones saying “Love the show James. It’s my every morning listen and the first boost of the day. 😊 Must see tv.” - 2161 sats using Castamatic. You can send boostagrams and support your favourite podcasts with value4value-enabled apps like Fountain.

Tips and tricks

• Is running a daily podcast worth it? Justin Phillips gives some reason why you should, and why you shouldn’t.

Podcast News - with AdLarge Media

Presented by AdLarge Media: The History of World War II by Ray Harris, Jr. History buffs rejoice! The History of WWII is a podcast covering the last world war in intimate detail. Host and historian Ray Harris Jr. has been obsessed with all of the elements of WWII since his days at James Madison University. He eagerly shares that passion and deep knowledge with his listeners every week.

Amazon has announced Country Heat Weekly, a show that “bring’s Amazon Music’s Country Heat playlist to life”. Digiday calls their strategy haphazard and sprawling.

Crypto Savvy is a new podcast released by a digital asset financial services company in Asia, HashKey Group. The podcast aims to demystify the rapidly evolving world of cryptocurrencies and analyse new investment opportunities. Two episodes are released today; it’s produced by Create.

Vox Audio podcasts are teaming up to tell the story of the future of work, after the recent dramatic changes to how workplaces work. Shows like Today, Explained kicked off the eight episode series on Friday.