Apple Podcast Charts 'screwy and scammy'; Australian Podcast Awards return to Sydney; LUFS FAQ

• The “screwy and seemingly scammy” state of the Apple Podcast Charts is the subject of much of the latest issue of HotPod; meanwhile an Apple website claims that Apple is aware, but offers little proof. Our Editor’s piece yesterday has resulted in a number of private emails from podcasters disillusioned and demotivated by the cheating.

• The Australian Podcast Awards ceremony will be back in Sydney on Saturday 18 May. They’ve announced the categories, and entries open on November 1.

• Canadian true crime podcast Dark Poutine is now part of Corus-owned CuriousCast. Dark Poutine claims it is approaching a million downloads in less than a year; the network also signed Nighttime last month.

• Audacity 2.3.0 is out. There are a bunch of new features.

• Spanish language podcast host iVoox has launched iVoox Plus, a monetization platform.

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• Nominations for the Discover Pod Awards are open from now 'till October 26th.

• Mexico’s podcast scene is covered by Adonde Media.

• AdExchange writes Behind Pandora’s Big Bet On Podcasts, covering the US music service who’ve been working on a “Podcast Genome Project” for some time. Not much yet to announce.

• What makes a good podcast name? Keep it obvious but add some quirk, suggests Tanner Campbell.

  
  Aug 6 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• After Apple last week asked for podcasts to be at -16 LUFS for loudness, we’ve written a small FAQ about loudness, LKFS and LUFS. We’d welcome feedback.

• There’s a new podcasting studio in Pilsen, Chicago IL, USA.

• Triton Digital have been signed by Canadian media company Quebecor Media Group to power its digital audio and podcast strategy.

• Tip: We’ve observed that Google Podcasts doesn’t like it if you put a different RSS feed in your website to the one you give to iTunes: even the https bit at the front might need to be identical. We’ve updated our guide on How To Get Into Google Podcasts accordingly. A number of podcast hosts are linking to http versions of RSS feeds on websites while giving Apple iTunes https versions; and these are not being correctly indexed within Google Podcasts; we’ve found many examples of Google using the iTunes listing instead of the website as a result.

Opinion

• Rob Greenlee posts a considered piece about podcasting’s “hype, hope and history”:

There are millions and millions of people who don’t listen to podcasts because they haven’t found one they like yet.

• Does Google really have a podcasting strategy? asks Marco Bernard:

“Google’s only commercial motivation in promoting podcasting is that it can add headphone data to its vast oceans of user data”

Podcasts

Legal Wars puts you inside the jury box of some of the most famous court cases in American history, including Hulk Hogan’s courtroom wrestling match with Gawker, the battle for free speech on the internet, and the Rodney King trial that set off the LA Riots. (Wondery / ART19)

Listicleapalooza

• 9 tips to be a better podcast interviewer (Wavve)
• 4 ways a podcast can make some noise (this one’s about marketing) (technically Baltimore)
• 7 Strategies For Being A Great Podcast Guest (David Hooper)
• 17 best business podcasts (Resonate Recordings)