YouTube Podcasts starts to roll out

• YouTube appears to be rolling out YouTube Podcasts in the US. Available from the explore page, the podcast front page contains popular episodes, playlists and recommendations, then a list of creators and categories like true crime, sports and music. It’s unclear how shows been chosen; NBC News bulletins appear in the list for some reason; Podnews doesn’t.

  • YouTube Podcasts is only available in the US: trying our enabled account from the UK via a VPN gives us a 404 error.
  • It’s also still rolling out to users. Podnews’s Editor’s personal account is not enabled, and even in the US gives a 404 error.
  • Podnews broke the story of YouTube’s podcast ambitions in March. However, almost nothing of their March plans appear to be in this soft August launch: the confidential document being presented to partners six months ago promised RSS ingestion, search improvements, audio ads, and audio-aligned analytics.
  • Erica, a Strategic Partner Manager from YouTube, shared tips about podcasting podcasts in June, including the suggestion “that you make a playlist for your podcast episodes”. That may have been informed by the “popular playlists” navigation in the new YouTube Podcasts homepage.
  • Kai Chuk, YouTube’s Director of Podcasting, will speak at Podcast Movement on Thursday. We reached out to YouTube’s PR team for comment, but have heard nothing back.

• Apple Podcasts has announced a number of changes to the platform’s RSS feed requirements “in 2023”. The big technical change: no more email addresses in RSS feeds: a welcome change which will dramatically reduce the amount of spam sent to podcasters. (Other technical changes include support of ETAG and Last-Modified, which will dramatically reduce the amount of bandwidth used for RSS feed checking).

  • The company has also announced changes to how podcast approval will work. In 2023, you’ll instantly get into the Apple Podcasts directory as soon as you submit a show; it’ll be available in search and and recommendations after approval.

• Spotify has put the company’s new podcast ad experience live in their app. Chris Messina has captured and posted what it looks like, on an ad with multiple advertisers: giving the listener a set of links for the ads they heard. Ads open in a webview, which potentially means Spotify can monitor the actions taken by the listener.

• Exclusive: How useful would YouTube Podcasts be for the podcast business? Studio71 tells Podnews that the company’s simulcast strategy - simultaneously releasing more than 100 shows on YouTube and podcast - has led to the company doubling its podcast audience in 2022, with total streams up by 118% year-on-year. Stephen Perlstein, the company’s SVP of Podcasts, tells Podnews: “For some of our shows, nearly half of the audience are first time podcast listeners, which is significant as it means that we’re expanding creators’ overall podcast fanbase and offering advertisers connections to fresh ears that have not been oversaturated with podcast ads.”

• Zencastr has launched what they call “the first end-to-end video podcast platform”. The service now records 4K video, allows you to edit it, host and distribute it to major platforms including “Spotify, Apple and Google Podcasts”.

• PodOps is to become a podcast hosting platform. PodOps Hosting will include third-party audience and data integration, sponsorship management tools, and more.

• Tracking and analytics website Podkite has added an API. Its free linking website KiteLinks has rebuilt its website front page, supports embedded videos, timestamps, and supports YouTube links. Here’s the Podnews Kitelink, and one for today’s episode page.

• Megaphone’s integration with Podsights and Chartable is scheduled for September 19, according to the company’s website. The company’s announcement just said “September”.

• The Irish Podcast Awards will take place on Friday 16th September in Dublin’s Liberty Hall. Tickets are on sale now.

• Canada’s Global News has published a piece about “how podcasts have become misinformation machines”. The story quotes Rogan and Alex Jones.

• In Sweden, LogCast - a social network for audio creators - has signed Johanna Nordström and Edvin Törnblom, the hosts of popular comedy podcast ursäkta.

• Podnews’s Editor, James Cridland, is interviewed in this week’s Podcast The Newsletter from Lauren Passell.

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Moves and hires

• Congratulations to Corey Layton, Head of Digital Audio at ARN’s iHeartPodcast Network Australia, for winning the Radio Today Executive Leader of the Year.

Podcast News

In Russian Resistance, “we want to show that the Russian anti-war movement actually exists and share the voices of those who support it. It seems important to us to talk about the situation in Russia on behalf of those who oppose the war. We believe that public awareness of the topic helps the resistance movement, which is slowly but diligently fighting the Putin regime.”

Caffeine, the social broadcasting company, has partnered with Checc’n In w/ BIG U to produce video versions of the podcast two weeks before they release on other podcast platforms. The show features LA street legend and entrepreneur, Eugene “Big U” Henley as he invites his A-list friends from across the culture to sit down for in-depth, unfiltered conversations. Snoop Dogg stars on the first episode of the new partnership.

Pop culture, dating nightmares and true crime podcast My Worst Date has launched a bonus show, called “Double Dates”, which will feature guests from other podcasts talking about their dating history.

Global has announced that The News Agents is the name of a new daily podcast from Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel (daily Mon-Thu), and Lewis Goodall hosting the show on Friday. It’s produced by Persephonica, the podcast company founded by Dino Sofos, and will launch on Aug 30.