Multi-hour outage at Megaphone; every podcast falls offline

• One of podcasting’s largest hosting companies, Megaphone, was down for more than nine hours. All the Spotify-owned company’s audio and RSS feeds disappeared at 8pm Eastern on Monday, after a certificate expired. In our tests, the feeds were restored at 5.39am Eastern this morning; the status page notes it fixed at 5.54am. Spotify hasn’t returned our requests for comment.

  • How much did that cost? Megaphone gets 600m monthly downloads (Mar 2020); assuming three ads per download and a CPM of $24.01, we estimate $588,791 was lost to the podcast industry.
  • The company’s content management system has had a number of issues since April 27.

• Acast has launched conversational targeting for podcast advertising. It allows auto advertisers to target episodes that are talking about new cars, not just new car podcasts.

• In the UK, audio revenue is up 500% in a year, says the Digital Publishers’ Revenue Index. The twelve traditional publishers in the report claim £4.2m (US$5.3m) were earnt in the first quarter.

• At Podfest, the PodPros Podcast Awards were launched, celebrating podcasters who’ve reached 100, 200 or 300 episodes. (Is there one for reaching episode 1,307?)

• TIYA, a social networking platform with more than twenty million downloads, has integrated Spotify functions, allowing friends to share their favourite music and podcasts.

• The International Women’s Podcast Festival has announced the headline show at the event will be Beyond the Self, hosted by Africa Brooke speaking to Blair Imani.

  • Podnews readers outside the UK can get 50% off virtual tickets with code PODNEWS50. UK readers can get 25% off in-person tickets with code PODNEWS25.

• Spotify is conducting research within its app on new features. The company appears to be testing the ability to pay to promote your show, as well as automatically place ads in shows to earn revenue.

• Spotify’s also announced a $100,000 grant for African podcasters, the Africa Podcast Grant.

• Acast has launched in Singapore, announcing Timi Siytangco as Key Account Director. The company has been in Australia and New Zealand since 2017, and will be a Gold Sponsor of Radiodays Asia in September.

• Aha! Alan Partridge is coming back to podcasting with season two of his From The Oasthouse podcast. It’s an exclusive on Audible, and will launch in September.

• Your Brain On Facts is about to hit episode 200, and will celebrate more than four years of weekly facts and history with 150 facts from host Moxie LaBouche plus facts from 50 guest podcasters. The call is going out to podcasters of all stripes to record and send in a short 1-3 sentence fact on any topic, complete with a plug for your show. Check out episode 150 for examples; email yourbrainonfacts@gmail.com by June 15.

Podcast News - with Lemonada Media

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Journo returns for season two today: the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas podcast that explores how news is made, used, abused, and how it can be made more reliable and trustworthy. The first episode, posted today, focuses on how the media has reported on the war in Ukraine.

Yesterday, we mentioned a podcast claiming it had the oldest podcast guest of all time, at 92. Records are made to be broken: tomorrow, the new season of Remarkable Stories will start with an interview with Lou Landreth, who’s 98. She talks with Mike McDowall about her life, her husbands and her criminal escapades around the globe.