New York Festivals 2025 winners announced

• The New York Festivals Radio Award winners were announced for 2025., which include podcasts as well as radio shows. Broadcaster of the year was CBC/Radio-Canada. The Lever’s investigative podcast Master Plan was awarded the prestigious National Press Club Award.

• Nick Quah chats with YouTube’s Tim Katz (“a vice-president who oversees partnerships across different sectors — news, civics, health, education, kids’ content — including, now, podcasts.”). Katz describes a podcast on the platform as “listenable content — so, content that’s video optional,” and says that “if you look at the top podcasts in the US, almost all of them are on YouTube”, although Podtrac told us in February that only half were.

  • Podnews said last week that the new-look YouTube podcasts homepage in the US was editorially curated. It isn’t, we’re told; just a different algorithm.

• The biggest podcast sponsors are more likely to sponsor true crime podcasts, says Rephonic in new analysis. 35% of shows have sponsors (similar to 34% for shows in all genres).

• AI creation tool Wondercraft has launched a new UI, and two new features to produce new voices by either writing a prompt, or through imitation. The company has also added a number of new voices.

• In Australia, Shopify is the #1 podcast ad buyer, says Magellan AI and ARN’s iHeart.

• Courtney Kocak talks with Julie Shapiro about “editing with intention”.

• Just launched: CastClip. “Grow Your Podcast With Viral TikTok Clips – in Minutes”

• In Uganda, Abdalla Mbajja from The Observer looks at “This million-dollar industry called podcasts”.

• From The Podcast Show…

  • “There was something for everyone in the audio space“ - ITN Business gives us twenty trends and insights from the show.
  • “The industry is grappling with its evolutionary leap into video”, says Ashley Carman in her Soundbite newsletter.
  • “You have to find or build your community.“ - Clare McGinn, newly released from the BBC, looks at the conference from a different vantage-point.
  • “What is a podcast?” It doesn’t matter, says SoundStack. Also posting on LinkedIn are Matt Cundill, Dennis Amo, Dawn-Michelle Lewis, Sangeeta Pillai, Sam Sethi, Neal Veglio, Lev Cribb (who posted video!), and even our Editor.
  • “The issue lies in the nature of industrial conferences as businesses“. It’s the fourth year for doom-monger Nick Hilton to assure us that the industry is falling in.

The Tech Stuff - with RSS.com

• There weren’t just one, but two meetings of the Podcast Standards Project at The Podcast Show last week - including the first in-real-life meeting with Fountain’s Oscar Merry, Snipd’s Kevin Smith, and Spreaker’s Emanuele Rampichini.

• If you have a show on Google News’s audio briefings service, know that Google is delivering you hundreds of thousands of automated downloads which aren’t being listened-to, and they don’t know why (in this deeply technical post, our Editor notes that we were seeing more than 40,000 a day). We know many senior people in Google read Podnews; but we can’t find anyone responsible for this service. Probably for the best.

Moves and hires

• Tom Raffe is now Head of Commercial at VoiceMap, a company that creates audio tours. He joins from Amazon Music and Wondery; and also worked at Spotify.

Tips and tricks - with The Podcast Show London

• How are the podcast charts calculated? We list all the podcast charts out there - and, how they all work. And even a tip or two on how to be #1 in Apple’s podcast charts (which is surprisingly easy to achieve).

• How to make your podcast easier with seasons is new from Rachel Corbett.

Podcast News - with Airwave

With Airwave: NerdWallet’s Smart Money Podcast featured trusted finance journalists, who answer real-world money questions to help you make smarter financial decisions with confidence.

100 CEOs with Steven Bartlett is a brand new show, “written by Steven Bartlett, created by AI”, which explores the lives and legacies of some of the world’s most influential entrepreneurs. The show is in video on YouTube, using AI image generation; the audio is also AI, created using Wondercraft. The first episode looks at Steve Jobs.

From The Bill Simmons Podcast this week, Bill Simmons, Spotify’s newly installed Head of Talk Strategy: “There are a ton of liars in this business, on every level - and now I have to deal with them on the executive side now, and it’s not great.” Are you OK, hun?

In the latest episode of Mics to Millions, Philip Pape talks about using Overcast ads to promote his podcast - which, he says, out-performed platforms like Facebook and Buzzsprout.

Ask Ralph: Financially Confident Christian is a new name for this christian finance podcast. Money is about confidence, stewardship, and faith, says financial coach Ralph Estep Jr.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood North is back for new season: looking into the life and career of comedy legend John Candy. It’s not just Uncle Buck or Planes, Trains and Automobiles - it’s the whole thing, from the stage of Second City Toronto to heights of Hollywood stardom, and a brief detour into Canadian Football in this six-part series.

According to this show, clutter wreaks havoc not only on our physical spaces, but on our emotional and mental health through our schedules too. On Wannabe Clutter Free, Kelly Nolan is helping busy moms with realistic time management tips that will make the transition from school to summer and back easier than ever.