“Brand safety” cuts revenue at The New York Times

• The New York Times has suffered from brand safety concerns, with CEO Meredith Kopit Levien saying that the company’s “digital performance, including podcasts, was impacted by marketers avoiding some hard news topics like the Middle East conflict.” That was the only mention of podcasts in the earnings call; the company reported mixed results.

• As trailed late last week, The Joe Rogan Experience is now available via open RSS - the feed lists 2,258 episodes.

  • Somewhat surprisingly, he’s hosting on Spotify for Podcasters, rather than Megaphone. (His old Libsyn feed redirects here, too).
  • Of note - his artwork is over-sized at 1.4MB; Apple normally requires images to be less than 500KB.

• Omny Studio has published the company’s annual download benchmarking data. The author is anonymous, but we think, given the clues, it’s Sharon Taylor. There’s a slight decline in total downloads numbers - perhaps as an adjustment after Apple’s iOS 17 updates.

• French audio industry publication LaLettre.Pro has published a special edition for the Radio Show in Paris, including a section on podcasting. On page 52, Philippe Chapot discusses our over-use of podcast analytics: “It is often said that numbers speak,” he says: but “often, numbers are made to speak.”

• Promptcast is the latest “summarise podcasts with AI” service to launch.

• Podcast hosting company Pinecast has a striking new website - and a nice new logo. Matt Basta, the founder, has written about the new design in more detail than is really needed by anyone (although, if you think we’re being a little sarcastic, you should see his second-last paragraph).

• In the UK, Global is to launch The Sports Agents, to build on the success of The News Agents. Unlike the news show, The Sports Agents will not be produced by Persephonica.

• Podcast revenue optimisation firm Flightpath have signed YMH Studios, a celebrity podcast network.

• In the UK, The Telegraph has joined Acast. The company says that Acast is now home to every major news publisher in the UK.

• The average person in the US spends 11% of their daily audio time listening to podcasts, according to the latest Share of Ear study from Edison Research. Radio is still doing more than three times that - plenty of space to grow. The company sends out a weekly insights email which is free.

 

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Moves and hires

• Travis Albritton has joined Amaze Media Labs as Head of Marketing. He joins from Honest Podcasts and Buzzsprout.

Tips and tricks - with Podpage

• Tools we love for podcast content ideation (Bamby Media)

• The top 10 podcasting mistakes podcasters make and how to avoid them (We Edit Podcasts)

Podcast News

In 2021, The New York Times said it did not allow oil and gas companies to sponsor The Daily. The newspaper appears to have forgotten that pledge - on Jan 29th, according to pressure-group Heated, the show carried an ad for BP, which has been criticised by some experts as misleading.

On the Evidence reached its five-year anniversary yesterday - and marked the occasion by dropping an episode with Robert Santos, the director of the US Census Bureau. The show examines what we know about today’s most urgent challenges and how we can make progress in addressing them. It’s sponsored by the policy research firm Mathematica.

The History Of Curb Your Enthusiasm With Jeff Garlin & Susie Essman is new today from iHeart Podcasts. The on-screen spouses will be joined by guests like Larry David, Cheryl Hines, and Richard Lewis, to break down every episode of the critically acclaimed HBO series.

McCartney: A Life in Lyrics returns for a new season today - the first edition looks at Love Me Do, The Beatles’ debut single (and is also the B side of Now and Then, the last single from the group). The show is co-produced by iHeartPodcasts and Pushkin.

“Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.” Freakonomics Radio is currently airing a three-part series about the late physicist - and professional troublemaker - Richard Feynman. The Curious, Brilliant, Vanishing Mr. Feynman is midway through its run.

The Secret Adventures of Black People has just launched its fourth season - following producer Nichole Hill’s journey from DC to LA to sell her idea for a Black history comedy podcast. Leaving her friends on the East Coast, she arrives in LA to discover audio industry layoffs and the writers’ strike.