Ausha launches podcast search optimisation tools

• Exclusive: Ausha is launching a Podcast Search Optimisation tool today. The tool monitors and optimises show appearance in podcast app search results, suggests keywords to rank for, and monitors Apple Podcasts and Spotify to measure the effect of any change. It’s available in beta for selected customers today, before a full launch later in the year.

• Exclusive: Gossip, rumour, and beer - a combination that makes for interesting stories. We heard all kinds of tales while at Podcast Movement: so we did some investigation. Was this podcast promotion company doing something naughty - or was it just the beer talking?

• YouTube appears to be rolling out limited access to its RSS ingest service to some podcasters (we’ve heard it is visible to some people in the US and the UK). Invitations appear in YouTube Studio for podcast playlists. YouTube’s Help Center has some detail on it. Podcast shows ingested in this way are visible globally on YouTube and within the YouTube Music app in selected countries.

  • Adam Bowie discovers that only 8 out of the top 25 UK podcasts are available in YouTube; and highlights YouTube’s rules for advertising.

• Update: After Podnews published concerns about a new podcast app called Rest, the company has made a number of changes. All podcasts on the platform are now available to anyone, regardless of subscription status - including a full search. The app’s curated lists are also now open to all. The company will also clarify in the Apple App Store what is included in the subscription and to correct some USD-only subscription prices.

• First look: Veritonic has released a new tool offering brand-lift measurement for embedded, or baked-in, ads.

• PodcastOne, which officially changed its name from Courtside Group Inc late last month, published an investor presentation. It delivered quarterly revenue of $10.8mn (up 22% year-on-year).

• Subscribers to France’s L’Equipe and the UK’s The Times will see additional subscriber-only podcasts in Apple Podcasts from today. Expect The Wall Street Journal and Germany’s WELT News to follow later today, and The Washington Post on Wednesday. Users subscribed to these apps through the App Store will have their subscriptions automatically connected the next time they open Apple Podcasts.

• In Australia, the winners of the ACRA awards were announced: the awards for the Australian Commercial Radio industry. There were a number of podcast awards; the Podcast of the Year went to LiSTNR’s The Children In The Pictures.

• In the UK, YouGov says that 42% of podcast listeners “find ads intrusive and skip them”. Meanwhile, AdAge writes that nearly half of all data used for targeting is wrong.

• The Times writes How to make big money from podcasts. We learn that Persephonica’s Political Currency is recorded at Acast’s offices in London; we also discover that Steve Coogan’s CH Podcasts business, which makes an Audible-exclusive show, paid £1mn in dividends last year.

• Further reading: The student newspaper at the University of Illinois tells us that “not everyone is interesting enough to have a podcast” - criticising the celebrity culture of many podcast companies … meanwhile in New Zealand, podcast producer Rory Hughes is interviewed by Close To The Mic. He, too, feels similar: “Over (the pandemic) there was a raft of celebrity driven, ill-thought out podcasts that flooded the market and turned a lot of people off.”

People News

• Eric John is to leave the IAB at the end of the month. He was part of the team responsible for the initial IAB Podcasting Measurement standards.

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• The ongoing hunt for cross-app comments has led Adam Curry to ask: is it possible to publish listener boosts into the chapters of a podcast, so you can see who left what comment as you listen? John Spurlock has produced some code to do that, in return for a 5% split. We’ve implemented it - send a boost to the Podnews Daily podcast today (or any day!) and see if it works.

• Spreaker wrote a technical blog post about how it detects potential fraudulent traffic. “It is worth noting that not all outliers are a sign of something going wrong,” it says - a point we also make today in our look at podcast promotion.

• Daniel J Lewis discovers that FeedBurner deals with the new Podcasting 2.0 RSS features quite happily: by ignoring them.

• Michael Braha writes What I Learned About MP3 Encoding. He points out that even though MP3 is no longer patented, the standard is paywalled (it’s about $230).

• The Podcasting 2.0 podcast published its 150th episode.

Podcast News

Football Clichés, previously made by The Athletic, is now a part of Goalhanger, the company owned by Gary Lineker, Tony Pastor and Jack Davenport.

A special edition of Shaping Opinion today focuses on 13Q, the top 40 radio station in Pittsburgh in the 1970s. WKTQ was “an innovator and captured the hearts, minds and wallets of the dominant Baby Boom teenage generation of the time,” and knocked its competition out of Top 40 altogether.

After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal is new from History Hit and Little Dot Studios - a show that aims to offer a unique insight into the true history behind the stories of true-crime. The first four episodes are available now.

The Parlor Room is a new show from Harvard Business School Online, which features a Harvard Business professor sharing practical business education using real world examples. The goal is to demystify academic theory so listeners can learn from Harvard professors wherever they are – not just in a classroom.

A new season of Deep Purpose, the Harvard Business School podcast hosted by author and HBS Professor Ranjay Gulati, starts today - with a new group of inspiring business leaders to talk about times they’ve had to make courageous business decisions – and the real impacts resulting from them. You can expect to hear from people like Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci, and former Unilever CEO Paul Polman.