Exclusive: the podcast app that shared every listener’s location

• Privacy exclusive: In a Podnews investigation, we discover Rova, a popular podcast app in New Zealand from MediaWorks, has been sending details about their listeners to any podcast publisher: including geo-location and a unique listener identifier. We’ve full details, including what they told the Google Play Store about their privacy practices, and what the company plans to do now.

• Breaking: Podcast investment company PodX Group has made its first UK investment. It becomes the majority shareholders in Goldhawk Productions, a unique production company specializing in audio drama and fiction with a catalog of premium IP rights.

• Edison Research is to add download numbers to its Podcast Metrics tool.

• Another podcaster has left the BBC: The Gemma Collins Podcast has moved from BBC Sounds to join Acast. The hit show will be available across all podcast platforms - even, as Acast’s press release points out, Google Podcasts, which the BBC blocks.

• Data: 32% of people in France (18-64) listen to podcasts, says new data from Havas Paris (en Français). French podcast platform Ausha translates some of the key findings, noting that “listeners consider podcasts spaces of tolerance, progress, softness, and trust.”

• Audioship claims it’s the easiest way to upload your podcast to YouTube, and comes well reviewed by a few podcasters we know.

• Audio equipment manufacturer RØDE has unveiled RØDE X, a streaming and gaming division. The company has three new products: virtual mixing software UNIFY, the XDM-100 dynamic USB-C microphone, and the XCM-50 condenser USB-C microphone.

• Sounder has flagged “more to share in the coming weeks about our company evolution”.

• iHeartPodcasts and podcast start-up Kaleidoscope, which makes highly-produced narrative podcasts, has unveiled their slate; including a podcast all about chocolate (see below)

Our articles RSS feed now includes our own reported articles, as well as press releases. (Tip: pull that into Slack for your team?)

Moves and hires

• Greg Buretz has been promoted to CTO of Libsyn in an announcement today. He’s worked for the company for more than ten years, and is the company’s first CTO.

Tips and tricks

Podcast Movement has shared two sessions from Podcast Movement Evolutions 2022 in Los Angeles:

• From the Industry Track - Making Great Podcasts On Time, On Budget, On Point: “Producing things is hard. So many personalities, ideas, schedules & peccadilloes to manage. And the deadlines! Oh, the deadlines. Join some of the folks from Spoke Media who manage all of the chaos, and find out how they’ve learned to create beautiful art from impossible constraints.”

• From the Creator Track - How I Made $50K in Sponsorship Revenue & Landed My First Sponsor Before Launching My Podcast: “Seasoned Host Harry Duran shares his exact blueprint for how he was able to land sponsorships for each of his 5 seasons of The Vertical Farming Podcast, totaling over $50K. Even better, he landed the first sponsor prior to launching the show!”

The next Podcast Movement event is Podcast Movement Evolutions in Las Vegas NV, USA, March 7-10 2023.

Podcast News - with Lemonada Media

From KSL Podcasts, and Lemonada Media, The Letter is a true crime series that follows the tragic events that sent shockwaves through a community and the shocking twist that followed.

40 Minute Mentor has reached half a million downloads. Hosted by James Mitra, the show lets you learn first-hand from today’s successful leaders on what it takes to be brilliant, all in just 40 minutes. Its debut episode was in April 2019.

OBSESSIONS: Wild Chocolate is new today - an epic Indiana Jones-like adventure, but the treasure is the world’s most ancient — and expensive — cacao. If you like chocolate, you’ll love this podcast. The extra fun piece: Kaleidoscope has joined forces with wild cocoa hunter Luisa Abram and Settler Chocolate to make a special box to go along with WILD CHOCOLATE. You’ve heard the podcast: now, buy the chocolate.

Podcast ads in the wild

Some “wheatpaste” posters, though we guess there’s a gluten-free alternative, for Wear Many Hats - a show “where we talk about your main gig but mostly your side hustle.” Rashad claims his favourite segment in Podnews is this one and hopes we’ll show off his work; we’re assuming these posters are in NYC somewhere.