Spotify opens paid subscriptions to all US Anchor users

When a new version of Apple Podcasts stopped auto-downloading podcasts because of a bug, was this an opportunity for better podcast stats? Sounds Profitable, with Chartable, asks if we should get rid of auto-downloads altogether.

• Spotify will now let all US-based Anchor podcasters sell podcast subscriptions. They have added more price points, and - if a listener opts-in - publishers will have their email address. Unlike Apple, you can’t subscribe in-app: and also unlike Apple, Spotify won’t take any revenue cut (after payment platform fees) until 2023, when it’ll be just 5%. International listeners gain access to paid content next month; and international creators can sell shows “shortly after”.

• Podfest Expo asked “how likely are you to attend an event hosted in Florida”, and 38.3% of people surveyed said no. They’re working on a “large virtual event with a small in-person component”, in early November.

• A new podcast app, Podopolo, has launched on iOS and Android. It promises “a New World of Interactive Podcasting”. It uses the Podcast Index as a directory, and supports the credits tag in the namespace.

• iHeartRadio and Dan Patrick have announced the second annual search for “The Next Great Podcast”, the company’s talent contest. It’s open to anyone around the world.

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• Triton Digital has released the July 2021 Latin America Podcast Report.

• On Monday, according to our stats, only 5% of Podnews’s downloads by Apple Podcasts were using iOS 14.5.x or below.

• In India, “radio jockeys”, as they call radio personalities, are “pivoting to podcasts for lack of censorship, autonomy and flexibility”, Business Insider report.

• Spotify has shared their top podcast plays of the summer. From May 29 through Aug 22, the lists are:

  • Global top podcasts
    1 The Joe Rogan Experience (exclusive)
    Sep 6 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive. 2 Crime Junkie (Audiochuck)
    3 Call Her Daddy (exclusive from Jul 21)
    4 The Daily (New York Times)
    5 Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard (exclusive from Jul 1)
    6 Gemischtes Hack (exclusive)
    7 TED Talks Daily (TED)
    8 Anything Goes with Emma Chamberlain (Ramble)
    9 Audice Wellness Services (independent)
    10 NPR News Now (NPR)
  • US top podcasts
    1 The Joe Rogan Experience (exclusive)
    2 Crime Junkie (Audiochuck)
    3 The Daily (New York Times)
    4 Call Her Daddy (exclusive from Jul 21)
    5 Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard (exclusive from Jul 1)
    6 NPR News Now (NPR)
    7 Morbid: A True Crime Podcast (indie)
    8 Last Podcast On The Left (exclusive)
    9 Up First (NPR)
    10 Serial Killers (exclusive)
  • If you’d not heard of Audice Wellness Services, the #9 global podcast, it’s Canadian, and released its last show on February 22. Audice Nasser, a Master Clinical Counseling Hypnotherapist, and each episode is either 1 or 3 hours long. It has no ratings on Podchaser; and appears in the Apple Podcasts mental health category chart in a few countries. It’s a curious entry into the chart, but perhaps explained by listening to typical episodes, like 1 Hour Relaxing Music For Stress Relief. Soothing Music. Meditation. Sleep Music or 1 Hour Calming Clinical Hypnosis Meditation Music - Fall Asleep in 5 Minutes, or 3 HOURS Guitar Relaxing Music for Stress Release, Deep Sleep, Meditation - it seems to be a set of music tracks to promote a hynosis business in New York ON, Canada.
  
  This link is no longer available, as at Sep 6 2023
  • Spotify has serviced some foreign press Top 10 lists in their country: here’s Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey.

Tips and tricks

• Here are some fancy embedded players to help put your podcast on your website.
• You can’t share a fancy embedded player like that in email. But you can share your podcast audio using a standard HTML5 audio tag. That shows up in some popular email apps (notably Apple Mail); and you can use a fallback link to the audio file, or a webpage, if needed.

Podcast News

Shots in the Back: Exhuming the 1970 Augusta Riot, produced by high school and middle school students at the Jessye Norman School of the Arts in Augusta GA, has won the Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. “I’m very surprised it was so powerful,” Atticus, one of the podcast students, said to WRDW. “It feels like something I just did with my friends, and then hundreds of thousands of people listened to it. It’s kind of incomprehensible.” - welcome to podcasting!

Congratulations to Elsie Escobar, who’s podcast The Feed for Libsyn has hit episode 200. The show first published in 2013 - the first five episodes covered Windows Phone 8 podcast apps, social media marketing, and what to do if Apple iTunes is not updating your podcast. Not that this would happen these days.