Spotify's new Pod City

• Spotify has unveiled its downtown LA offices, called Pod City. It can accommodate 600 employees, and has 18 studios.

• We reported yesterday that podcast hosting company bCast had pulled all “lifetime” accounts with just two weeks notice. The company has now changed its mind, calling the decision “misguided, irresponsible and a mistake”; it’s also refunding customers if they bought a new plan.

  • Last month, Spreaker also prematurely closed a 10-year promotion for free hosting. It had offered that with iHeart in July 2013.

• Another day, another podcast deal for SiriusXM, which has signed with YMH Studios, the podcast network owned by Tom Segura and Christina P. The multi-year agreement integrates the YMH Studios staff into Stitcher, where they will continue to operate Your Mom’s House and the rest of the network’s slate. Shows will continue to be made available everywhere, and ad-free versions will be in Stitcher Premium.

• Pacific Content has published its second part of podcast predictions for 2022. Our Editor again predicts that Apple Podcasts will launch an Android app; he lost a bet with Adam Curry that they’d do that this year, and paid the 100,000 sats to Adam today.

• In the UK, the BBC claims “558m plays of podcasts and on-demand radio programmes on [their app] BBC Sounds in the UK” in 2021 - a figure that doesn’t include non-UK listening, nor any listening on podcast apps. It also reports that BBC Sounds say they’ve seen “a nearly 25% increase in podcast listening”.

• In Australia, the ABC has published its “top 10 podcasts of 2021”. The Signal is third in the list; it was axed by the corporation in November, and just ended.

• A new version of software for the Shure MV7, the ShurePlus MOTIV desktop, is now available. v1.2.1 now natively supports Apple Silicon Macs.

• Talking of which, all Rogue Amoeba apps now have full Monterey support, they say. Podnews uses Audio Hijack, Loopback and SoundSource.

Moves and hires - with Pod People

• Sarah Foss has been promoted to Chief Technology Officer at Audacy.

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Tips and tricks

• 10 Things to Know Before Creating a Global Multilingual Podcast, from Adonde Media, responsible for the recent Last Days of Maradona podcast, suggests that learning how to deal with different timezones is a good start.

Podcast News - with Memberful

You’re Wrong About was recorded in unusual conditions for its latest episode - everyone was in the same room. No, for real. It also features a look at The Amityville Horror in their book club, and why it’s a Christmas story.

From the UK, the Automovie Podcast talks about cars on film. The latest episode, #47, talks about Hammond’s Workshop and Ghostbusters, before reviewing Drive and Overdrive.

The Offcuts Drawer is a podcast about writers and writing, and the bits that they never finished. Actors perform them, and the writer tells host Laura Shavin the stories behind them.

Verbal Diorama is the podcast on the history and legacy of movies you know, and movies you don’t. The latest episode (#130!) is all about Thor: Ragnarok, a movie that was partly filmed in Podnews’s home town of Brisbane, Australia - doubling up as Manhattan, with yellow taxis and steam billowing out of the ground.