Be sure to note… Apple’s podcast-related WWDC announcements last week didn’t stop at the desktop app spin-out and the upcoming enhanced machine learning-driven search engine. The platform is also adding new genres and subgenres to the way it categorizes podcasts. I discussed the move in a recent Insider, but non-paid subscribers can catch up through this 9to5Mac post.
Keep an eye out… WNYC’s Werk It team just rolled out two things worth checking out this morning. First, they announced announcing the results of a pay study — I hear they got over 600 responses off the survey, but we’ll have to see the experience spread — and second, they’ve announced a new advisory group that’s meant to help shape conference programming. You can find the details on that group here.
Tracking
- From Digiday: “The New York Times’ news podcast ‘The Daily’ is delving deeper into European politics with a weeklong series to help grow its global audience.”
- From CNN: “Vox Media and employees reach deal on a union contract.”
- From press release: “Audioboom Names Jessica Landman Sales Director, Ups Jordan Imsho To Junior Sales Director.” This comes as the UK-based podcast company, which is listed on Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange, reported an apparent 92% revenue increase, to $11.7 million, in the 13 month-long period ending December 2018.
- From Billboard: “Spotify Announces Return of ‘Sound Up’ Podcast Accelerator for Women of Color.”
- The graphic design for some of Elizabeth Warren’s signs look mighty familiar…
Release Notes
- The Obamas — they’re just like you! Well, in the sense that they’re make podcasts now. Except they’re making them for Spotify. On an exclusive multi-year deal. So maybe they’re not just like you. Most of you, anyway. Here’s my Vulture write-up on the matter.
- In the wake of the Sony Music-Davidson-Mayer joint venture, it’s worth keeping an eye on what other music groups are up to. To that end, it seems like Atlantic Records has a new show floating around the podcast charts, The Making of the Shoreline Mafia, which is hosted by Loud Speakers Network vet Jonathan Mena. Not sure if this is directly connected to the podcast initiative the group announced last February, though…
- From Variety: “Comedy Podcast Network Forever Dog Launches 11 New Shows.”
- Gimlet Media has a new show out, a fiction pod called The Two Princes, and unless I’m mistaken, I believe this is the second production, after Motherhood Sessions, they’ve rolled out since the company’s acquisition by Spotify closed.
- The BBC’s collaboration with the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, Death in Ice Valley, is briefly returning for a live show later this month.
- Was scrolling through a list of true crime podcasts the other day and spotted one called “Dark Poutine,” which is perhaps the most efficiently descriptive title I’ve ever seen.