Wondercraft launches AI Video Studio

• Wondercraft launched a new AI Video Studio, that can - among other things - make videos from your podcasts, with animations and images. The tool allows you to select what kind of outcome you want (a business video, a social promo, etc), and give it your podcast’s audio (or a prompt about what audio you want). You can even set an avatar of your hosts.

• How do most podcast agencies show their clients that their work was a success? By talking about downloads, according to a new report, State of Podcast Agencies 2026, by CoHost and Quill. The data also shows that most podcast agencies are small - with 76% operating with fewer than ten employees - and 92% use AI in some part of their workflow.

• The Castro podcast app has launched listening stats. Castro’s Dustin Black says: “You can see how much you listened in any given day, week, month, or year, and you can drill down and see the exact episodes you were listening to at an exact time. It’s really cool!”

• Podscribe has added Watchlists, to offer email alerts when meaningful changes occur - with competing brands beginning to advertise on new shows, or new advertisers appearing on a competitive show.

• In the US last month, YouTube’s share of all TV viewing dropped a little to 12.7%; and Netflix jumped up to third place with 9%, according to Nielsen’s latest data. The measure is of total minutes consumed.

• One of Australia’s biggest podcasts, Life Uncut, has switched from ARN’s iHeart to competitor SCA’s LiSTNR. In October, the show achieved 400,000 listeners with iHeart … and PodcastOne has signed Wicked Awesome, from hosts Shanna Moakler and Claudia Jordan.

• The Scottish Podcast Awards have announced the award’s categories. There is an international podcast category (“designed to acknowledge the international listening habits of Scottish podcast audiences.”)

• Microsoft has posted about “The AI Podcast Studio”, a project to demonstrate “the seamless integration of the Microsoft Agent Framework, Local Small Language Models (SLMs), and VibeVoice (”specifically designed for podcast-style conversational audio") to automate a complete tech podcast pipeline." The code is here. The company doesn’t post any audio.

Podcast News - with Airwave

For your Ambies Consideration: Face-Off: The U.S. vs China for Best News & Politics Podcast. With Airwave, this is an inside look at the turbulent relationship between the world’s two superpowers, the two men in charge, and the vital issues that affect us all.

The latest two episodes of Search Engine are a great example of a great guest that carries an entire show - Alejandro Velasco is a Venezuelan historian, and takes us through the history of the country in an engaging and fascinating way. Very much worth a listen.

WHERE BRAINS MEET BEAUTY celebrates its 300th episode today; the show is known for its refreshingly candid conversations with beauty founders and executives, pulling back the curtain on how leaders actually build their careers. Hosted by Base Beauty Creative Agency founder Jodi Katz, the show has a live taping of six (!) podcast episodes today.

The State of It: USA is new from The Times of London today. It’s hosted by Katy Balls, the Washington Editor of The Times and The Sunday Times; and Gerry Baker, Editor-at-Large at the Wall Street Journal. The Murdoch-owned podcast promises “no fake news, no flag waving, and no Trump derangement syndrome”.

Award-winning, educational-comedy podcast Well, I Laughed returns for a new season with a new look, aiming to continue the show’s mission to bring listeners moments of joy through smart and funny deep dives into surprising subjects. Hosted by a public school teacher and an engineer, the show dives into unexpected topics from birth control to pirates.

Mics to Millions returns for a new season, with a short episode with Sam talking about lessons from 2025 that he’s aiming to apply to 2026. Guests this season include Stefanie Bichara, host of Broke Girl Therapy; Jonathan Levitt, host of For The Long Run; and kicks off next week with Bumper’s Dan Misener.

Optimist Economy is now partnering with public media organization PRX to bring the podcast to listeners everywhere. The economics podcast from Kathryn Anne Edwards and Robin Rauzi explores how to build a better future one issue and solution at a time, tackling topics such as housing, healthcare, and misunderstandings behind the narrative of Social Security’s impending doom. A new season has just kicked off.