New publishers make it to Podtrac's top 20

• Podtrac has published March 2020's top podcast publishers. There are a number of new publishers participating in Podtrac’s list: WarnerMedia (new at #10), Fox News Radio and Slate. “Sixteen of the Top 20 were up or flat for March over February in regards to Downloads”, says the release.

• Following our story on Friday, Spotify has told Podnews that they are not automatically removing episodes just for mentioning the words 'coronavirus’ or 'covid-19'. Some shows, mainly with titles around prevention or treatment, were manually removed following violations of Spotify’s terms of service. Spotify also has a coronavirus section, by the way.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 22 2023

• Synth Audio, currently in private beta, is producing a weekly newsletter with quotes and clips from notable podcasts. Here’s last week’s issue; you can sign up here.

• Spotify-owned podcast host Anchor has quietly rolled two more improvements out to their service: 301 redirects are now available directly from your dashboard, as well as a method of claiming your podcast stats from Apple Podcasts Connect.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 22 2023

• Dolby On is a new audio recording app for Android devices which offers noise reduction, compression and limiting, dynamic EQ and other effects. It’s in 'early access’ on the platform.

• Mobycast looks at how four different podcast hosts deal with podcast episode descriptions.

• Tom Webster from Edison Research took us inside the Infinite Dial, the company’s media research, in a webinar late last week. The recording is now available.

• Australia’s broadband network, the NBN, has published details of the effects of the country’s #stayingin policy on their network: a growth of 25% of internet traffic in just one month.

• From Podcast Academy board member Kerri Hoffman, details of PRX’s response to the coronavirus. They’ve made a bunch of videos helping you start a podcast.

• Apple has removed their 30% commission fee on “qualifying premium subscription video” apps in the App Store.

  
  Aug 22 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Tanner Campbell writes why you don’t need a popshield - or a shockmount, probably. (Podnews has neither)

  
  Aug 22 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• The Listen In Conference on June 25 (in downtown Los Angeles CA, USA) has been postponed. The new date is Oct 5.

• If your audio is only served using HTTP (perhaps you self-host), it can no longer be played on HTTPS websites as of now, if your listeners use Google Chrome. As one example - with Chrome, this podcast won’t play on the Apple Podcasts website nor on Google Podcasts, and just silently fails to play. The good news? Our podcast page now catches the error, and at least offers an alternative way to listen. (Earlier, we misread Google Chrome’s announcements, and thought we had until October to fix this. That’s not the case.)

  • One way round this: use Spotify’s embedded player, since it caches your audio.

Podcast News

Work Matters with Ken Coleman is a new podcast from the Ramsey Network: a quick, daily dose of what’s going on in the job market and how it affects you and your career journey. And yes, today’s episode is all about the coronavirus.

Podcast Coaching with Christine has a special guest in her latest episode - our Editor, talking about how podcasting is being affected by the stupid virus.

The trailer has been posted for WarnerMedia’s The Plot Thickens, a documentary podcast from Turner Classic Movies. The first season is about Peter Bogdanovich - a young cinephile who quickly rose to become one of Hollywood’s top directors, but soon found himself a victim of jealousy, hubris, public scorn - and a devastating crime.