How this fiction podcast makes money

• First look: The Program has published its annual report, looking at where the fiction podcast grew and earnt money. Apple Podcasts Subscriptions were the second biggest revenue source, in spite of a relatively low price ($4/month). The producer also covers their experience with Libsyn’s AdvertiseCast and Rusty Quill; and what happened when they started posting shows on YouTube.

• Variety interviews Spotify’s Dawn Ostroff. She talks about Joe Rogan, though doesn’t say whether he’s going to sign again at the end of 2023 - or Meghan Markle, come to that. She promises to cancel shows on a regular basis, as they do in TV, she says.

• Writing in this week’s Sounds Profitable, Tom Webster reckons that we should embrace AI in podcasting, not fear it.

• Podcasts are heading into more cars, thanks to a partnership between mobile AI company Cerence, iHeartRadio and Radioline. The partnership will help deliver what the company calls “the most comprehensive catalogue of live radio and podcast content” for automakers and their OEMs.

• Not podcasting, but in the US, Publishing Weekly has released its annual jobs and salary survey. That industry is 77% female. White employees make 83% of all respondents: down by just a percentage since 2019.

• The Briefing, a podcast about intellectual property, has released its 100th episode. The episode looks at golfer Jack Nicklaus, who was taken to court by his own company in a dispute over whether he could use his name or not.

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Data

• Data from ScientiaMobile was released with data about mobile platforms across the world. We’ve updated our podcast market data slides.

Podcast ads in the wild

On Ben-Gurion-Ring in Bonames, a northern suburb of Frankfurt, Germany, Steffen spots this ad for the State Government’s Science and Culture podcast, Hessen schafft Wissen. “The round thing is called a Litfaßsäule”, he helpfully tells us; in English, you’d call this a Litfass Column, since it was invented by the German printer Ernst Litfaß in 1854. It made it into a Google Doodle once.