Last day to take part in the Report Card

• Today is your last day to fill in the Podnews Report Card. This year, we’re giving direct feedback to all the major podcast platforms about what you think; as well as reporting at Podcast Movement about who’s improved and who hasn’t in the past year. Please take part: it’ll take less than five minutes (unless you’re really slow at typing).

• Open podcast analytics service OP3 has released show stats pages, with download data, podcast platforms, countries and more. Podnews links directly to them, for any show which uses OP3 like Podnews Daily, Everything Everywhere Daily, No Agenda, Pod Chat or Buzzcast. The release also enables additional API calls.

• Hearts are out; Plus signs are in. Spotify has a new way to save your favourite podcasts: merging the “like” and “add to playlist” functionality with a plus button instead.

• iHeartMedia has launched a new podcast brand safety tool with Sounder. The tool claims to be the first to give brands episode-level safety assurance.

• Libsyn’s AdvertiseCast has signed an ad partnership with The Viall Files. The podcast will also use Libsyn’s own subscriptions platform, and the company’s automatic ads solution.

• A new audio ad marketplace launches in Sydney tomorrow. Audacia is founded by ex-Spotify director Kym Treasure.

• In the UK, the Birmingham Podcast Festival has been announced: a series of panel discussions and workshops providing top tips and advice. It’s on Sat Apr 22, tickets are less than £15.

• The Gumball team are running a free webinar on podcast ad operations today at 2pm CST.

• Veritonic’s second Audio Intelligence Summit in New York NY last week had a record attendance, according to the company.

Thank you to Libsyn, who we welcome back as a gold supporter today. Libsyn was the first podcast hosting company in the world (here’s their first video ad). Their support helps us focus on our independent reporting. You can join them.

Tips and tricks - with Podcast Movement Evolutions

• In Five Ways to Increase Podcast Listener Loyalty, Stephanie Fuccio suggests reminding people of your previous episodes - and four other ways, too.

• Ausha shows you How to Structure a Podcast in 5 Steps in the company’s latest blog.

Podcast News

The Mark Levin Podcast has a new home on YouTube, as Cumulus Media launches Mark Levin’s official podcast channel on YouTube. The channel will contain a number of different segments from the show.

The WhiskyCast podcast has launched a mobile app, designed for whisky enthusiasts to “enjoy undiluted, cask-strength conversation about all things whisky”.

Easy Stories in English has been acquired by Glassbox Media. The show brings 173 episodes and has successfully secured more than 500,000 monthly downloads to the Glassbox Media platform.

Latina-hosted and Latine-produced The Pulso Podcast returns for a new season today, starting with a two-part series on Latina beauty standards, where they stemmed from, and how they show up in modern life. Past episodes have covered parenthood, mental health, environmental justice, gender equality, grief and loss, and food origins.

Podcast ads in the wild

In East Broadway subway station in New York NY, Podnews reader Nick sends us this ad for “Words + Music”, a “ground-breaking new series” (though not, as you’ll note, a “podcast”). East Broadway station was opened in 1936.