Appearing higher in podcast searches

• Ausha has published a study about the Apple Podcasts search algorithm, including gains for podcasters who use their keywords in podcast titles and descriptions. We link to the full infographic.

  • Apple Podcasts has, in the past, removed shows for “keyword-stuffing”. However, this advice seems no longer to be on the Apple Podcasts website; and Apple Podcasts did not respond to a press enquiry.

• Triton Digital has announced a partnership with ID5, an identity provider, to add audience data to Triton’s Audio Marketplace. ID5 uses “consented signals provided by media owners to securely identify users without compromising privacy and data protection”; Triton client ARN is quoted as saying it has converted 60% of their unaddressable audience to addressable.

• Triton Digital’s US Podcast Ranker, which measures participating publishers only, has been released for February. Total downloads appear to be down year-on-year by 41%, thanks to Apple’s iOS 17 changes.

• Spotify and City, University of London announced a new bursary to join the UK’s first dedicated MA in Podcasting. Spotify has provided funding for a student from a marginalised community to attend the course starting September 2024.

• There’s a new podcast host in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Thmanyah Hosting is a podcast hosting platform for Arabic creators, as well as offering monetisation and targeting for advertisers.

• Auddia, which was to launch ad-skipping for podcasts in January, has announced more details on the service, which will now be launched “later this year”. Participating publishers will receive a payment for each play based on the podcast’s average CPM, while listeners will hear the ads automatically skipped. The company will announce participating publishers in a few weeks; and plan to sell the ad-skipping service to other podcast apps.

• TuneTaxi, a royalty-free music service, has launched with more than a million AI-generated tracks. It’s aimed at anyone currently having to pay for music, like retailers or content creators.

• LiSTNR, the Australian audio app, has launched an adtech hub. It is said to offer “increased personalisation and targeting, extensive dynamic creative optimisation and an Australian based CDP and first party data clean room solutions and services”.

• Jamie East - the Head of Podcasts for DMG Media, the publisher of the Daily Mail - is interviewed in the UK Press Gazette.

• The silver-tier passes for The Podcast Show in London this May sold out yesterday, we’re told. We also hear exciting gossip about a big party.

Tips and tricks - with Memberful

• Fine-tune your podcast’s title and description, says Apple Podcasts, adding that you should write episode titles that “hook listeners”. Here’s more from Apple on titles and descriptions.

• Here’s what Apple, Spotify and other podcast apps are actually indexing for their searches.

Podcast News - with Airwave

A featured science podcast on Airwave: Join NASA astronauts, scientists and engineers on a new adventure each episode — all you need is your curiosity! First time space explorers welcome. NASA’s Curious Universe is an official NASA podcast.

What Was That Like hosted by Scott Johnson, has expanded to weekly. Bi-weekly episodes will continue, with first-hand traumatic stories like plane crashes and animal attacks. But now, every Tuesday Scott and co-host Meredith (Meredith for Real - the Curious Introvert) answer a thought-provoking question (such as “What’s your biggest regret?”) and then discuss answers sent in by listeners.

We Are Chelsea is a new football/soccer podcast today which will take fans behind-the-scenes of the most successful team in the Barclays Women’s Super League. It’s also available on YouTube, and is produced by Crowd Branded.

The Podnews Weekly Review this week will contain an interview with Evan Prodromou - a co-editor of ActivityPub, the W3C standard for decentralized social networking used by platforms such as Mastodon.