Podcast Movement 2020 switches to October

• Podcast Movement has announced a switch of dates for Podcast Movement 2020, following disruption caused by the coronavirus. The event is now scheduled to be on October 19 to 22, in Dallas TX. A newsletter has been sent to all attendees outlining their options for the event.

  • Podcast Movement now comes straight after She Podcasts LIVE, which closes on Oct 18. Podcast Day in London is scheduled to be on October 26th.
  • Our Editor will be speaking at PM20 and at Podcast Day, assuming the Australian government lets him out.

• Gracenote has launched a podcast database. Called Gracenote Audio On Demand, the company offers standardized podcast titles, descriptions and imagery across more than 900,000 podcast series, and additional data including celebrity links. The company already powers music, sports and TV data across the world.

• Tuesday May 12 is Giving Tuesday Podcasts day. You’re asked to drop a short, special episode in your feed recommending a podcast or three to your subscribers. (Not your own podcast obviously, they’re already listening). The brains behind it, Brett de Hoedt is interviewed on Podcast Radio about the initiative.

  
  Aug 23 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Podtrac have revealed their top publishers ranking for April 2020. Surprisingly, NPR falls to second place in terms of US audience: they’re beaten by iHeartRadio, who have also added 18 new shows. The service only measures participating publishers.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 23 2023

• Ben Thompson and John Gruber have launched a paid-for podcast: Dithering offers three episodes a week, 15 minutes per episode (not a minute less, not a minute more), and costs $5/month. It uses the Memberful platform.

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• Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify, was interviewed on Bloomberg. “There will be millions of podcasts around the world, but few that are daily rituals. For us to build and invest in them, it’s a much better fit by owning them than having them as a third party relationship.”

• PRX has launched TRAX, a podcast network for tweens. It includes productions from Cocotazo Media, Lantigua Williams & Co, and CBC.

• CrowdQuestion have launched a service to match podcast guests and podcasters.

• Cadence13 has entered a content partnership with Headspace, a meditation and mindfulness company.

• Crossover Media Group Sales has added David Shuster’s Quick Hits Media to its roster of political news and talk programming.

• FusionCast is a new macOS app that makes podcast episodes into videos. It costs from $6.99.

• Speakers of Spanish, or lovers of “days, wine and podcasts”, might enjoy this blog in El Pais.

Tips and tricks

• Today: a free webinar from Quill’s CEO Fatima Zaidi and Ever Gonzalez - “Ten steps to grow your podcast audience”. It’s at 2pm Eastern US.

• Wednesday: a free webinar from Shure, on “microphone selection and placement for podcasting and mobile recording”. Wonder what brand of microphones they’ll recommend? It’s at 11am Central US.

Podcast News

Somebody reaches its season finale shortly - it’s the story of a mother who wouldn’t stop on her quest for the truth about her son’s murder. A co-production of Topic Studios, The Intercept, the Invisible Institute and iHeartRadio, in association with Tenderfoot TV, it seems a good one for Mother’s Day, which is on Sunday in some parts of the world.

Streamiverse, the fan podcast that was about Quibi until Quibi decided to send a lawyer’s letter to stop them, had a special guest - Jeffrey Katzenberg, the founder of Quibi. He was, they report, “polite, tolerant, and overall much nicer than he needed to be”. He also said that sending the lawyer’s letter was a mistake.

The Joe Rogan Experience had Elon Musk on, mainly to pronounce “X Æ A-12”, his new baby’s inexplicable name. “X-ash-A-twelve,” apparently.