RØDE's new wireless mics; Google removes old Google Play Music Podcasts from iOS

• RØDE have unveiled an expansion to their Wireless Go range of microphones. The company have added white versions of their wireless microphones, a lightweight handheld holder, and a white set of lavalier microphones. They’re especially built for video use.

• First spotted by Rob Walch on The Feed, Google Play Music appears to have finally removed podcasts from their iOS app. A note saying “for iPhone or iPad, podcasts are not available in the Google Play Music app” has also appeared on Google’s help pages, though there’s no helpful link to the Google Podcasts app, which has replaced it on iOS.

  • The orange Google Play Music Android app still has podcasts in it in the US, for now, as does the Google Play Music website.

• How many takedowns have Blubrry and Libsyn had from Spotify because of coronavirus-related concerns? Hardly any - “under double digits” according to Todd Cochrane of Blubrry, speaking on The New Media Show.

• Two former senior executives who worked for Rupert Murdoch at 21st Century Fox have been indicted over their alleged role in a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving kickbacks to FIFA and Conmebol officials in exchange for broadcast rights. One of those indicted is Hernan Lopez, now CEO of Wondery and a founder of the Podcast Academy. “The indictment contains nothing more than [a] single paragraph about Mr Lopez that alleges nothing remotely improper,” Matthew Umhofer, representing Lopez, said in a statement; Lopez is scheduled for arraignment in federal court in Brooklyn on Apr 9.

• Podtrac have announced Podcast Audience Category Rankings, a new paid service from the podcast analytics company.

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

• Google Podcasts’s new iOS app unfortunately uses a near-identical user-agent to Apple Podcasts, and we noted the potential for misattribution at launch. Speaking on The Feed, Libsyn have admitted that stats from the new Google Podcasts iOS app are mistakenly lumped in with Apple Podcasts in Libsyn stats at the moment: they hope to fix this in the next few weeks. Full marks to Libsyn for being open and letting folks know; a community-maintained list of useragents is over here.

• Audioboom’s revenue for the first three months of this year was up by 40% from the same time last year, according to a trading update. The US$4m secured loan that the company obtained (Feb 13) wasn’t used. The company has also started using Voxnest’s IAB-certified measurement.

• Google Ad Mob pulled advertising from Podcast Addict again (we reported the first time on Oct 31). This time it was barred from earning revenue because of “unauthorised filesharing”. The company have since admitted they were wrong in doing so, and ads are now appearing once more.

• Cosmicast is a new podcast app for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch. Playback looks like an old-fashioned vinyl turntable.

• Midroll report on the measurement session at RAIN Podcast Business Summit in New York NY, USA last month.

• In Captivate's weekly feature release, the podcast host has added XSLT styling for podcast feeds, that removes the confusing jumble of code you normally see when clicking an RSS feed by mistake. Here’s an example. (Our Editor is on their advisory board; Podnews smartened up our RSS feed up a few weeks ago too.)

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

• Libsyn say their total podcast downloads for the week of Mar 15, when the virus began to hit, were down by 12%; though they fared better over the weekend. (The Feed, again)

• Yesterday we reported on a new subscription-only podcast, CSO Perspectives, aimed at cybersecurity executives. For clarity, it’s from CyberWire, and part of [CyberWire Pro]](https://thecyberwire.com/pro).cccccckbclehtfbbcjgrfc

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

Podcast News

Joe Biden’s Hear’s The Deal is described by New York Magazine as “bad”: “so stilted and awkward that it makes me legitimately alarmed”, says Will Leitch in a scathing review.

New York Magazine’s Will Leitch may know what he’s talking about: his own podcast, Grierson & Leitch, has published 221 episodes, and is more than four years old.

Points South, a podcast from Oxford American magazine, has been awarded a $350,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. It’ll fund more feature-length reporting.

We don’t link to many podcasts from the Netherlands here, mainly because we only speak English: but we think you’ll enjoy De Buitendienst (“The Field Service”) - a series of hour-long soundscapes from nature reserves across the country, with no spoken word and no music.

The Puffin Podcast, from the 80 year-old UK children’s book publisher, is “packed full of laugh-out-loud stories, games and jokes guaranteed to give you the giggles!” Hosted by Humza Arshad, it launches on Apr 19, aimed at children aged 6+.