The Ambies give awards to Steven Bartlett and Podnews

• The Podcast Academy has announced two, new, international awards will be handed out at The Podcast Show in London this week.

  • The International Governor’s Award goes to Steven Bartlett from FlightStory’s chart-topping Diary of a CEO, which has “elevated podcasting as a medium for insight, vulnerability, and meaningful dialogue”, said Christy Mirabal, the chairperson of TPA.
  • The International Impact Award goes to James Cridland, the Editor of Podnews, who Mirabal said has been “a global voice for the podcast industry, tirelessly advocating for its growth, innovation, and sustainability”.

• Headliner launched TL;DL today. “Too Long; Didn’t Listen” blends clips from your favorite shows with AI-host insights for a unique, personalized audio experience. You can try it today.

  • Here’s a ten-minute version of the Podnews Weekly Review from this week, via TL;DL (it’s summarised our top story well - but that’s all it did).

• More than 80% of creators are using AI in their workflow, according to a new study from Wondercraft. The main benefit of AI is to save time, according to the survey.

• In Germany, ProSiebenSat.1 has acquired podcast production company Studio Bummens, which is one of the largest in the country. The companies have worked together for some time; no terms were given.

• Podcast hosting platform Disctopia has acquired Wavve, an audio-to-video tool. Wavve’s technology will be incorporated into the Disctopia platform.

• In the UK, The 2025 Golden Lobes were awarded last week. Powered by Adelicious, the awards crowned the funniest podcasts - winners included Harry Hill, Tom Scott’s Lateral, and Frank Skinner, who received the inaugural Lobes Legend Award.

• Acast is highlighting their new Creator Profiles section, to better match advertisers with podcasts. (If you’re with Acast, you’re invited to complete it). The information is “surfaced to advertisers, our global sales teams, and is fed into our internal planning tools”.

  • And… relax: in a filing to Companies House in the UK, Acast’s UK company has confirmed that “its intended future activities are lawful”. Good to hear. (UK companies have to do this every year.)

Moves and hires

• Adelicious has grown its sales team with two new senior hires: Liam Robinson and Antonia Digby have been hired as Agency Sales Directors.

The Tech Stuff - with RSS.com

• The command-line tool yt-dlp (on Github here) can download directly from RSS feeds, James Scholes reminds the fediverse. If you’re looking for a relatively simple and foolproof way to download complete archives from an RSS feed, he gives a useful command to do so, which neatly renames the audio files.

• Changes at Fountain, the podcast app, were announced on the Podcasting 2.0 podcast, including the launch of a new podcast hosting company, and monetisation options. We’ll cover the news in full later this week.

Tips and tricks - with The Podcast Show London

• Podcasts work best when you can find them in every podcast directory, not just Apple and Spotify. Here’s a big list of all the podcast directories you should be in.

Podcast News - with Airwave

With Airwave: True Spies takes you inside the world’s greatest espionage and detective operations - talking to the real spies behind the missions. Currently the show is looking at the British spies that operated in Northern Ireland during The Troubles, the 30 year conflict in the province.

Do you have what it takes to emulate your hero? Finding Lucinda follows a young singer-songwriter on a road trip of self discovery to trace the roots of their musical hero Lucinda Williams. ISMAY meets Lucinda’s early collaborators, digs through the archives to uncover hidden treasures, and visits the studios and venues where Lucinda got her start. Finding Lucinda is a story about not knowing whether you have what it takes to be the artist you want to be, and looking for answers on how to move forward anyways.