More Lemonada, after funding round

• Podcast network Lemonada Media has raised $8 million in funding, to hire more diverse talent and staff, make more shows and partner with more brands. Meanwhile, Tortoise, a “slow news” company in the UK, has completed a US $13m funding round, and plans more podcasts.

  
  Sep 11 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Crooked Media has acquired two podcasts: Critical Frequency’s Hot Take, and the indie podcast Strict Security. Terms weren’t disclosed.

  • The acquisition of Hot Take means Amy Westervelt’s Critical Frequency is now focused on reported narrative shows. The company has worked with Crooked Media before on This Land.

• Facebook is a dying breed and you shouldn’t focus on it for your podcast, says Hala Taha from the YAP Media Network; Twitter is not the place to promote your podcast either, and audiograms don’t work. Speaking to the Podland podcast, she says she recommends looking into LinkedIn instead; and never to just promote Apple Podcasts.

• Spotting an opportunity, US satellite radio broadcaster SiriusXM has announced a Neil Young channel: Spotify removed Neil Young’s music after the musician objected to Joe Rogan’s views. Writing for Recode, Peter Kafka points out that no other music artist is following Young’s lead; in The Verge, Ashley Carman writes that Joe Rogan is the lynchpin of Spotify’s podcasting apparatus: advertising on the show is only available as part of a network buy across all of Spotify’s podcasts.

• LAist Studios has unveiled its 2022 podcast slate. The shows tell stories often ignored by Hollywood and mainstream media from a uniquely Los Angeles point-of-view.

• Promoly has unveiled a new promotional tool for podcasts, where you can email contacts, get feedback, and even see if they’ve played it. It’s a new service from a platform used by musicians.

• There are many different Grants for Creators - so Danielle Desir has launched a paid newsletter to help you find them across the US. Her most recent newsletter contains grants totalling $106,500 (though some are state dependent).

• Targetspot’s owner Audiovalley posted a 48% growth in revenue for 2021.

• On Monday, The Podcast Host launched something to do with NFTs. However, responses to its announcement weren’t pretty. In a statement on Twitter, the company has promised to do more research.

• Serial is back, sort of. Serial Productions, now owned by The New York Times, has announced a new show from S-Town’s Brian Reed and journalist Hamza Syed. The show, called The Trojan Horse Affair, will be released in full on Feb 3.

• The Podcasting, Seriously Awards Fund has a new fund partner, Podnews’s ad-tech newsletter, Sounds Profitable. The fund covers admission fees for independent and early-career BIPOC, Queer, and Trans producers, for their work to be considered for awards and competitions.

• Podcast training programme The Kasama Collective has been nominated as a finalist for the 2022 Social Impact Awards.

• Another podcast has made it to TV - Recode and Vox Media’s Land of the Giants has been snapped up by CNN+. The show will be available on CNN’s streaming service at launch.

• Good news if you download subscription reports from Apple Podcasts; the company has updated the format to ZIP files and made them easier to read.

Moves and hires - with Pod People

• Jennie Baird has been hired as EVP and MD of Digital News and Streaming for BBC Studios, and “will also assume responsibility for the BBC’s recently launched documentary and podcast services - BBC Select and BBC Podcasts”. She joins from News Corp.

Sep 11 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.
• Nicole Beemsterboer is to leave NPR and join Gimlet as Head of News and Knowledge, HotPod Insider reports.

This link is no longer available, as at Sep 11 2023

Tips and tricks - with Podpage

• What makes a podcast hit? Annalise Nielsen at Pacific Content gives four factors on whether a podcast is “a hit”, and how to get there.

• Riverside has a podcast name generator that we saw linked the other day, if you’re looking for inspiration. We’re not entirely sure that “The Mankanto Morning Show” or “Taurus” are entirely our brand, mind you!

Podcast News - with Quill

Produced by Quill: The Great Indoors How has technology changed around the world? Join Matt Roberts from Amdocs as he discusses how human technological adoption habits are evolving as a result of the COVID-19 Pandemic, and how we’re rediscovering the magic of technology as a necessary result of being indoors.

Sh**ged Married Annoyed has renewed with Acast with a multi-year extension. The show boasts 150 episodes, a record-breaking live arena tour (selling out London’s O2 Arena and Wembley SSE Arena in London alone), a Sunday Times No. 1 best-selling book and an upcoming BBC TV show. - read more

Meet Cute’s new talk show podcast, The Rom-Com Room, features rom-com connoisseurs Kendra Okereke and Mercedes Gonzales Bazan, who unite each Friday to nerd out about their favourites, their love-to-hates, and every crush and rom-com in between. It’s new today.

Spotify Open Access

We noted yesterday that despite Acast being promoted as a launch partner for Spotify Open Access in July last year, their new Acast+ product does not support it.

• Acast says: (our emphasis) “Acast+ will work on all podcast listening platforms that give their users the ability to add any RSS feed of their choice. This means that a few podcast players - like Spotify - are currently excluded because they work differently. However, we are part of their OAP programme and we are continuing to work with them on their approach to how they manage subscriptions to ensure that the end product meets what’s best for Acast creators and the open ecosystem - which is for podcasters to have direct relationships with their listeners. Acast+ works on the majority of podcast apps and players including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, and Castbox and is available to access for 80% of our listeners.”

• Spotify says: “As shared in the announcement, we’re activating those partners on a rolling basis – to mention just a few that have already been announced as live since July, we have rolled out Supercast, Slate Plus, Pushkin Industries and Mamamia. We have no new specifics to share right now, but expect to hear more from us in the near future!”

• And, Jennifer Tribe, Supercast's Head of Marketing, spots a marketing opportunity: “I’d like to note that Supercast was also on the Open Access launch partner list: and we have rolled out our integration (as of Oct 2021). At this point, we’re the only subscription platform offering it to all our podcasters.”

Perhaps we should add Spotify Open Access to our list of things announced by Spotify that haven’t launched yet.