A legal threat to a podcast app for using open RSS

• Exclusive: A lawyer acting on behalf of Canadian broadcaster Radio-Canada is threatening podcast apps that use its podcast feeds. Our investigation today discovers that in the overly-broad legal threat, the lawyer is confused about how podcasting works, and even who his client actually is.

• Host-read ad marketplace Gumball has launched contextually-relevant “adaptive ads”. The tool “considers the similarities between a show’s audience and brand’s target buyer, the specifics of the brand’s ad copy, and the content and tone of a particular episode, to create a script that captures the brand’s requirements while thematically matching the podcast episode it’s being inserted into.”

• “It’s time for the advertising industry to stop thinking in silos and start thinking in moments.“ - Writing in Podnews, Kym Treasure, founder and CEO of Audacia Audio, suggests that brands should embrace a cross-channel strategy that follows listener behaviour.

• Spotify for Creators will be unavailable for an hour or so next Monday at 8am New York, 1pm London, 10pm Sydney. If you host with them, you’ll not be able to publish new shows for sixty minutes or so.

• The text of Acast CFO Emily Villatte’s keynote speech at The Podcast Show has been published, saying that video is expanding what “open” means for creators.

• The Rock Fight, a podcast for those in the outdoor and adventure sports industry, is to record live at Switchback Spring, an outdoor industry gathering in Nashville TN, USA. The podcast will cover everything happening at the event.

Thank you to Neal Veglio from Podknows Podcasting for becoming our latest personal supporter. Podknows produces a number of hit podcasts for small business and corporate clients - and he’s one of the many people paying for Podnews to keep this kind of journalism free for everyone. You can join Neal and support us.

Moves and hires

• Audacy has made Michael Biemolt their President of Digital Sales. He’ll spearhead all national and local digital sales strategies. He’s worked for various incarnations of the company since January 1996.

Tips and tricks - with Memberful

• Apple Podcasts released a new set of pages explaining how to produce their in-app artwork for your show, which can make your shows shine in the Apple Podcasts app. There’s now a template library, and a partnership with Canva to make it simple. There’s also details about host and guest images for the app. Many of these enhancements were only available for the big shows.

Podcast News

Where the law of the land ends, the story begins. Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Ian Urbina returns with a new season of The Outlaw Ocean, his riveting podcast anthology produced by CBC. There are four new investigations, from a high-risk reporting trip to Libya (where the team was held up at gunpoint) to a groundbreaking three-parter on China, the undisputed superpower of the seas. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Real Crime with Adam Shand is brand new from Podshape this week, with one of Australia’s best known crime reporters. You’ll go deep into Australia’s most gripping current crime stories and cold cases, told through Adam’s renowned storytelling and extensive on-the-ground experience.

You’ll hear Dr. Dawn Raffa and her co-hosts on Ditch the Labcoat dive into honest, thought-provoking conversations that connect you to the world of psychology. From mental health myths to everyday behavioral insights, they explore how science can educate, support, and empower—without the clinical coldness. It’s smart, grounded, and made for curious minds who want more than surface-level advice.

Una Casa Sobre El Mar is the podcast for the largest Spanish-speaking community of financial advisors. The show aims to help you make smart investment decisions with insights from top industry experts. It’s hosted by Francisco Rodríguez.

With a new episode yesterday all about brand success, The Persuasion Game is a podcast about the marketing strategies behind the world’s biggest brands. It’s hosted by Laura Halliday and Adam Rowles from strategy and innovation consultancy The Forge, and discusses how companies use persuasion to influence their customers, convince stakeholders and drive their businesses forward.

What’s it like to spend months living and working in Antarctica? To find yourself unable to walk up the stairs due to a sudden rare illness? To quietly start an environmental movement wearing a wolf mask? Tell Me What It’s Like is a new original series from Raine Media (Wisdom of Age), where host Stacy Raine talks with everyday people who’ve experienced something extraordinary and finds out what it was like.

Crime Adjacent is the never-ending true crime story told weekly. As a genre-busting, scripted podcast, it overlays speculative storylines onto real, true crime cases, blurring the lines between reality and nightmare. In this season, host Chase Patrick investigates how the nation’s most prolific serial killer could slip under the radar for so long. The Rest Stop Killer targeted young men in a string of brutal murders from the 1990s, abducting them from city streets and murdering them in a secluded lovers lane. Then - he vanished…until now.