Payne Lindsey's new show

• Tenderfoot TV and Cadence13 have extended a podcast partnership through 2024. A number of new shows are planned, included a UFO investigative series hosted by Tenderfoot TV’s co-founder, Payne Lindsey.

• Spotify reckons it now has 5,523,475 podcasts, according to an app notification on Jan 13; the Podcast Index is on 4,113,645; and Apple is on 2,528,530 suggests Podcast Industry Insights.

• Measurement and research company Nielsen is to restructure and will reduce headcount by “hundreds”. Meanwhile, AI company SoundHound has laid off half its remaining employees. Its technology is used by companies like Audacy, Pandora and Netflix.

• Spotify was down for a few hours on Friday night.

• Blubrry has launched Quicklinks, a link to share everything about your show with others. Here’s an example for the company’s Podcast Insider show. It’s free for all Blubrry customers.

• Ausha has launched Deeplinks, a method to link directly to an episode on a number of different platforms. Here’s an example linking to an episode of their own tips podcast. It’s free for all Ausha customers.

• What will Joe Rogan do when his Spotify contract is up for renewal? Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy was on Joe Rogan’s show on Jan 5, and asked how Rogan dealt with the controversy last year (from 1hr21m). “Spotify stood by me the way they stand by rappers”, Rogan said, but then acknowledged that he’d have been removed from the platform if he wasn’t as successful. He added 2m subscribers during the negative publicity, he said; and Rogan also railed against YouTube’s demonetisation policy which apparently affected 25-30% of his videos prior to his Spotify deal.

• The EarBuds Podcast Collective this week examines episodes for “light and dark”, chosen by Yeardley Smith.

Moves and hires

• One of the casualties at Nielsen includes Bruce Supovitz who built much of Nielsen’s podcast tools. Supportive of Podnews since our inception, he describes himself as in a good place, and we wish him well.

Tips and tricks - with Podcast Movement Evolutions

• How would you start your own podcast network - and what’s the point? The CEO of The Pharmacy Podcast Network, Todd Eury, is in a free webinar tomorrow from Podbean.

The Tech Stuff - with RSS.com

• Podcast analytics service OP3 has published its methodology of calculating a download, and John Spurlock has published more on why prefix analytics aren’t always identical to logfile analysis, particularly a different method of dealing with range requests. Major prefix analytics companies we’ve spoken to, including Podtrac, say that they have similar solutions in place.

  • Pinecast is the latest to support OP3 in its dashboard.
  • OP3 reports the Podnews Daily has had 49,126 downloads in the last 30 days.

• Cloudflare has launched Wildebeest, an ActivityPub and Mastodon-compatible server.

• Writing transcripts for the podcast:transcript tag? To support every client who might want to use it, ensure the CORS headers are set and open to everyone.

• Spotify’s non-standard chapter support might not be what the rest of the industry uses, but we can, and should, work around that, argues our Editor in a personal blog post.

Podcast News - with editaudio

From editaudio: Well…Adjusting Join award-winning actor, writer and funny lady Robin Hopkins as she helps guests manage stress, face their finances and laugh while figuring out life.

Last week’s Code Switch was the first with the podcast’s new co-host, Lori Lizarraga. She was announced at the end of September, and joined from television news in Denver CO and Bakersfield CA.

As we start a new year, some of that business goal advice you’ve been given might not work for you - especially if you have ADHD. In Business Strategy For Weenie ADHD - preneurs (weeniecast) Katie McManus gives advice and a '37 weenie challenge’ to get your 2023 off onto the right track.

Australia’s Shameless has launched a subscription channel on Apple Podcasts, called Shamemore. “Shameless is known for unpacking celebrity controversies, including scandals that have rocked the public, shaken up popular culture, and changed the way we think such as as the Jen, Brad and Angelina love triangle. Now Shamemore subscribers will receive ad-free listening across all episodes, early binge drops for the SCANDAL series, and monthly bonus episodes.”

From KBTX in Bryan TX, RECKLESS: The Gonzalo Lopez Escape looks at an escape of a convicted killer who remained on the run for three weeks - while a terrified town wondered where he was hiding out. It’s hosted by Karla Castillo.

Has one of your high school classmates been accused of murder? When Sam Anderson heard that about one of his class, he travelled to California to look into it: and discovered his mate had been pulled into psychedelic drugs. Crooked City: The Emerald Triangle is now available in full from Novel and Truth Media for Sony Music Entertainment.

Digital Folklore is new today: a fusion of audio drama and narrative documentary exploring how our online expressions and culture - from scary stories to cat memes - are folklore. The podcast has an embedded game, too: with clues in each episode to take listeners on a sidequest. Created by 8th Layer Media and distributed by Realm, it’s hosted by Perry Carpenter and Mason Amadeus.

HBO’s The Last of Us Podcast was new yesterday, to coincide with the show’s premiere. Hosted by Troy Baker, it features guests Craig Mazin and Neil Druckman who created the show.

The fiction podcast Terrifying Lies is back for season two, starting with a three-part weird western tale that pits an apocalyptic cowboy and young girl against a ruined town full of demons. Each episode ends with an original song from the host, Craig Nybo.