A deep-dive into podcasting in Vietnam

• Long read: In our latest look at podcasting in the East, we visit Vietnam - a country where audiobooks are surprisingly popular, and where the roads aren’t ideal for podcast listening. Guang Jin YEO also looks at the history of podcasting in the country. It’s another fascinating read.

• 14,000 podcasters have had their Anchor usernames, emails and passwords posted on a Russian-language black-hat hacking website. (Change those passwords!)

• Data: In Finland, a study says that podcast listening takes time away from traditional media like radio and television. The data from Norstat is released today by Podimo, which claims a 40% growth in subscribers since the beginning of the year.

• Disco Free by Headliner is being launched today on Product Hunt. It’s a free AI-driven podcast discovery tool for podcasters who also have a blog or website.

• “We believe in podcasters and content creators who want to distribute their content broadly across all third-party platforms.” Nilay Patel interviewed SiriusXM CEO Jennifer Witz for Decoder - there’s a transcript here.

• Do fancy live streaming with OBS, but want to make your audio that bit better? Waves plugins now work with OBS, according to the company.

• The Australian Podcast Awards, powered by iHeart, return this year with 30 categories. Submissions are now open.

• Alby is partnering with Podcast Guru to offer “value 4 value” payments to podcasters in the popular, polished podcast app.

• A podcast network run by Ivey Media is to close, according to an email to contacts. The faith-based network had eight shows, and achieved more than 10 million downloads in the last twelve months.

Moves and hires

• Lillian Xu is joining Vox Media as the Executive Director of the audio business. She joins from New York Public Radio. We’re also told she plays pickleball, which we fondly imagined was a game played with actual pickles, probably in a bar at the end of a long night. It turns out not to be.

• N’Jeri Eaton has been hired by Wondery as head of co-productions for limited series. She had worked at Apple Podcasts and most recently was Head of Podcasts at Netflix.

Podcast News

In BRKIN Bread: For The Hungry Mind, guests don’t meet before the podcast recording, and never know the topic of conversation they’re going to be asked to talk about. All dinner guests are diverse in several areas, including background, ethnicity and ideology, which creates spicy conversations. It’s in the middle of the first season.

The King Road Killings: An Idaho Murder Mystery is new from ABC Audio, investigating a set of savage murders that captivated and horrified the nation at the end of last year in Moscow ID, USA. The final two episodes will include real-time updates from investigators revealed in the preliminary hearing for the accused murderer.

New from Sony Music and Hyperobject Industries, Without explores the things we stand to lose, the things we should be losing, and what might still be saved. Hosted by author Omar El Akkad, Without tackles how we process a world that’s changing faster than any other time in human history.

The Leon Media Network has launched a new podcast called Educate U.S., which will feature conversations with educators and experts about important and pressing topics in the education space. The show is hosted by Nick Zaveri, Dr. Stacey Schultz, and Dr. Patrice Fenton.

Free From Desire is an official selection in the audio storytelling program of the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival and premieres today. What’s it like to come to terms with one’s own asexuality in a society that only talks about love and sex? At the age of 35, Aline Laurent-Mayard has never been sexually or romantically attracted to anyone. This is their story - produced in two languages with a bilingual host.

Indigenous leaders in the West are getting a seat at the table to make decisions about issues like drought, bison, and museum artifacts. The Modern West returns to tells the story of the Plains Indian Wars through audio storytelling, re-enactments, and music.