Luminary gets a new CEO

• Luminary has changed CEO. Matt Sacks, the former CEO and founder, is now to serve as Executive Chairman; the new CEO is Simon Sutton, who joins from US pay broadcaster HBO. The company has also announced it has raised a further $30m in funding. Speaking to Variety, Sutton declined to mention his favourite podcast; and their story also includes an all-staff email from Sacks; Luminary’s strategy officer and co-founder Joe Purzycki left in August.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 18 2023

• PRX look after 127 podcast shows. Donna Hardwick, PRX’s Chief Marketing Officer, explains how the marketing department, a team of nine, all work together. (We forgot the link yesterday: thanks to the two competitor networks who mailed us)

• Bob Pittman, iHeartRadio’s CEO, has been interviewed on CNBC, a US business news network. In the interview, he said that podcasting is “an extension to radio”, adding that the company is encouraging everyone to get into podcasting because “we’re the leader, we’ve got the big library and the big shows”.

• Googlewatch: Our version of the Google Podcasts app, launched 16 months ago by Google, now calls itself “Google Podcasts Beta”, we notice. Wonder what’s going on there? Android Police claims a new now-playing UI, but we don’t see it, nor the automatic downloads that they’re reporting on.

  • 16 months after the launch of Google Podcasts, Google Play Music Podcasts - a separate product - is still operating: and contains no help text or signposting to help confused iPhone-owning podcasters.
  • Google Podcasts broke an unpublished method of testing whether podcasts are in their directory in August. It’s still not fixed.

• Australians spend more time listening to podcasts than their privately-owned music collection. This data was released a few weeks ago, but the Sydney Morning Herald dives into this story in more depth.

• The latest UK radio numbers show a significant increase in podcast listening says Press Gazette. Overall, UK radio has the lowest figures since 1999. 88% of the country still listens to radio every week; 17% listen to podcasts.

  
  Aug 18 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Sony Music Entertainment has announced a joint venture in the UK to form podcast company Broccoli Content. The company will explore a range of podcasting opportunities supporting Sony Music artists and podcasting talent.

• Audioboom Originals have announced their Q4 2019 slate.

• Here’s why some podcasters don’t like the idea of programmatic advertising - it can sound rubbish, as Kristofor Lawson writes. “Programmatic advertising is bad for advertisers, and bad for listeners,” he opines.

• Want a map showing French podcasting’s big players?

• The Daily Mail Australia has launched its first podcast.

• Podcast Movement filmed a bunch of mini-documentaries about podcasters. They’ve just released Helena Watkis-Porter and Dave Cross (and here’s our editor.

Podcasts

Podcast Review, um, do a review of Podcast But Outside, with a review that uses the phrase “content perfection”. You’ve convinced us. (Libsyn)