Podcasting gathers in Las Vegas

• Podcast Movement Evolutions is about to start in Las Vegas NV, USA. A multi-track podcasting event, it’s designed to help people keep up with the evolving landscape of audio and podcasting.

• SiriusXM is to make 475 people redundant, representing 8% of their workforce. A note from CEO Jennifer Witz was shared with staff. Blaming economic uncertainty, the note says that “nearly every department across SiriusXM will be impacted”.

• Captivate has released a number of RSS enhancements using new features from podcasting 2.0. Ten additional features were launched this week, allowing podcasters to support the vast majority of additional functionality from the new namespace.

• Rephonic has published the most popular podcast categories by country. The UK is into comedy, the US is into crime, and the French are into culture. Naturellement!

• What is programmatic advertising? If you’re secretly not entirely sure - relax, 61% of marketers in the US don’t know either, says Acast. In a blog post, the company highlights a best-practice document it gives media buyers to help, and explains why bundling streaming and podcast ads together doesn’t work too well.

• In Germany, the launch of the Podigee Ad Marketplace has been announced. The hosting and analytics company has partnered with Seven.One Audio, which is part of ProSiebenSat1, a large media company.

• PodFest Cairo took place over the weekend. SOWT Media’s CEO Ramsey G. Tesdell spoke about the importance of podcast artwork and branding as well as the growth for Arabic language audio content. Some sessions are available to watch again online.

• An error at Spotify meant CarMax, a used car financing firm, was incorrectly highlighted as a sponsor of a number of podcasts. Our own Podnews Weekly Review was affected - we were alerted by, um, its real sponsor, Buzzsprout (awkward). A spokesperson for Spotify said that the company “identified the issue and swiftly resolved this matter.” We understand it’s a different error to one which placed a liquor sponsor on a number of shows last year.

Moves and hires

• Meredith Krantz has been announced as Director of Brand Partnerships at Libsyn’s AdvertiseCast. She joins from the Cumulus Podcast Network.

• Following the release of its first original podcast, UNBOXED, Evangeline Robinson joins Listen as the company’s Marketing Manager. She spent the last year at Novel and was at Apple Podcasts before that.

• CEO of Amplifi Media Steve Goldstein is to teach a new course at NYU called The Business of Podcasting. The course is believed to be the only accredited college course focused on the business side of podcasting in the country.

Podcast News

Do you find yourself jumping straight to the comments only to wonder why online threads are so addictive? Straight to the Comments is a new women-led podcast with a mission to explore the fascinating and sometimes disturbing world of online comments and their impact on us and our wider society. It launched last week.

Need a new show to listen to? New Podcast Trailers is available in your favourite RSS podcast app, and contains trailers from lots of new shows.