Spotify buys platform safety company

• Spotify has acquired platform safety company Kinzen. “The technology the Kinzen team brings to Spotify combines machine learning and human expertise - backed by analysis from leading local academics and journalists - to analyze potential harmful content and hate speech in multiple languages and countries.” Kinzen is based in Dublin, Ireland; no terms were given.

• Spotify’s Podsights ad measurement service has launched in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy. The company is also testing Podsights tools on audio ads in music, partnering with Omnicom Media Group in the UK.

• Acast held a “Capital Markets Day”. The fast-growing company described itself as “the Wordpress of podcasting”: it offers 5 ads in each show, though just sells 28% of them (p50); and about half their biggest shows aren’t monetised at all (p14), so plenty of room to grow. The company is achieving $22 CPM.

  • Some of those made redundant in Acast’s job cuts are leaving at the end of the week. We wish them all the best: our Podjobs board is full of opportunities. Shout if we can help.

• The Hollywood Reporter has published the 40(ish) most powerful people in podcasting.

• In the US, iHeartRadio is still #1 for podcasting according to Podtrac’s publisher data for September. Numbers are slightly down, but that’s misleading - September has 3% fewer days than August. It’s an incomplete ranker, measuring participating publishers only.

  • In the company’s top US podcast ranker, Serial made a re-entry following its new episode last month. The top five were unchanged.

• A profitable podcast business is for sale on Microacquire: Podnews understands this product is Rate This Podcast.

• In a podcast entirely generated by artificial intelligence - and probably kicking up quite some ethical questions - Podcast·ai has made a show where Joe Rogan interviews Steve Jobs.

• In France, the Choses à Savoir podcast network achieved a new record audience in September with 5.8m listens.

• Further reading: Nicolas Ivanov from Vizzy discusses The Reimagination Paradox and how we overcome innovation limitations in podcasting, arguing that better support for chapter images would achieve significant growth for podcasting … Meera Kumar argues there needs to be a one-year blanket ban on the production of true crime podcasts …

Tips & Tricks

• Want to know how to start a sports podcast? Here’s your game plan (Acast)

• Three methods brands can use to get inside the heads of podcast listeners (Pacific Content)

Podcast News - with Lemonada Media

From Lemonada Media: On Funny Cuz It’s True Elyse Myers interviews well-known individuals about their most awkward moments. Relentlessly unfiltered and relatable, we’ll laugh at and learn from the moments that keep us up at night.

In the weekly review podcast Podland News with Podnews’s Editor James Cridland and Sam Sethi, the very excellent Skye Pillsbury talks about her podcast newsletter The Squeeze.

The Mel Robbins Podcast launches today. The motivational audio creator and international best-selling author has signed a multi-year deal with SiriusXM which gives SXM Media exclusive global ad sales rights.