Podcasting workshop to be held in Jamaica, and new Spotify hirings

• In Jamaica, Heneka Watkis-Porter, host of The Entrepreneurial You, and the Jamaica Stock Exchange are hosting a Beginnner’s Podcasting Workshop on October 31st. She reports “a brand new wave of podcasters on the shores of the tropical isle of Jamaica”.

• What’s the difference between a dynamic microphone and a condenser microphone for podcasting? You might have heard that dynamic microphones pick up less room noise: but that’s not really true. We bust the myths.

• Spotify has hired David Rhodes (ex CBS News) to help develop their news programming; and Amy Hudson (ex Facebook, Turner Sports, NBC Sports) to oversee their sports shows.

• Variety have announced their highlighted storytellers and podcasters for the first 10 Storytellers to Watch event in New York City on Sep 19. They’ll also will be profiled in the Sep 17 edition of the magazine. Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie from Limetown, and Anna Priestland, the producer of Letters of Love in WW2, are among those honoured.

• NPR has a new CEO. John Lansing currently looks after Voice of America and other US-funded broadcasters, where he increased weekly audience by 25%.

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• Magna predicts slower growth for US podcast advertising revenue, predicting that it’ll hit $1bn in 2022. Their report uses data from the IAB, who in June predicted it’ll hit $1bn a year earlier. US radio ad revenue for 2018 was $13.4bn, but Magna says that radio revenue will drop by 5% every year from hereon in.

  
  Aug 16 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Google may be adding a personalised podcast recommendation tool to Android phones. The Google Podcasts app is also getting a slight redesign, which will highlight cover art a little more. Auto-downloading, a feature of almost all podcast apps, is still being worked on, according to the article.

• Entale, a visually-augmented podcast app, has raised £2m (US$2.5m) from DMG Ventures, the venture capital arm of the owner of the Daily Mail, a UK newspaper.

• Steven Goldstein gives a list of eleven US podcast stats worth knowing, all with sources.

  
  Aug 16 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• The Publisher Podcast Awards are open for entries today. Celebrating “the best in podcasts from media and publishing organisations” (and open to media and publishing organisations only), their ceremony is in March 2020 in London, UK.

Podcast Revenue

• You can make money in Spanish-language podcasting, according to Álex Barredo, host of mixx·io. He sells sponsorship for €750 per episode (US$830). With this revenue, and other income, he’s quit his full-time job as writer for La Vanguardia.
• Courtney Carthy argues that a strategy for online news publishers with a subscription product should be really simple: no ads, just promote the subscription product.

Podcasts

Spreaker Prime: Frozen Truth is a deep dive, on-the-ground investigation of a new mystery each season. The most recent season investigated the 1995 disappearance of television news anchor, Jodi Huisentruit, from the parking lot outside her apartment in Mason City, Iowa. They’re using Spreaker Prime to increase exposure and maximize monetization.

George McDonagh, the producer of Power Corrupts writes what he learnt when producing the first season. He notes that the podcast has had half a million downloads. (Libsyn)

The Times of Israel and the American Jewish Committee have launched a new podcast. Called People of the Pod, it “examines political events, the people driving them, and what it all means for the Jewish people and Israel.” It replaces (and is in the same feed as) the AJC Passport podcast. (Soundcloud)

My Dad Wrote A… is back for season five. Their HBO Comedy Special is also available on on-demand platforms; and they will tour Australia and New Zealand in January; the US and Canada in March and April; and have European dates later in the year. (Acast)