Choose-your-own adventure fiction podcast launches

• A new interactive podcast experience has launched, with eight different endings. In the first of its kind, Eli McIlveen and Sean Howard have teamed up with email company AWeber to offer a choose-your-own audio experience, delivered daily.

• A few small tweaks to Google Podcasts on the web have been spotted. Most importantly, the service is now prominently linking to publishers’ websites (rather than hidden behind a menu option as previously). (Neither Apple Podcasts nor Spotify appear to link to publisher websites at all, depriving podcasters of potential revenue).

• Will Ferrell is flush with success after the Ron Burgundy Podcast, and has launched a new comedy podcast company Big Money Players Network. The company will produce ten shows over the next two years for the iHeartPodcast Network.

• Spreaker has unveiled a new partnership with Streetlib, the company has announced. The collaboration will seamlessly allow book publishers to create podcasts and podcasters to create and distribute digital books and audiobooks.

  
  Aug 17 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Stitcher is beginning to switch hosting of its podcasts from ART19 to Omny Studio, according to an email sent to publishers.

• Entercom has enabled a new feature, “Radio·com Rewind”. For about 50 talk stations from the US broadcaster, audiences can now access any of the previous 24 hours on-demand. The company describes it as “a third window” between live radio and podcasting. (The same service has been available from BBC Radio, over a seven day window, since June 2002.)

• Business Insider highlights the production process Wondery takes to achieve a chart-topping podcast.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 17 2023

• Record companies may be feeling threatened by podcasting. UMG strategy exec Barak Moffitt says he’s concerned that US music fans are listening to less music, and that podcasts are partially responsible. He made the comments - where else - on the Ad Age Ad Lib podcast.

• The team from Resonate Recordings attended She Podcasts LIVE. “The whole Resonate team was blown away by the overwhelming feeling of community and empowerment that was fostered at the event.”

Podcast Revenue

• Podcasting’s small, beautiful age is drawing to a close, says a piece in Digiday about advertising, saying that podcasting is becoming dominated by a handful of platforms. “The industry is trying to get itself ready for a world where marketers expect mass reach and compliance with industry metrics,” it claims.

• Podcasts Media Marketing, which sells advertising in podcasts like This American Life and The Joe Rogan Experience, has signed with Nielsen for its Podcast Listener Buying Power Service.

• In the US, DAX has partnered with Frequency to offer data-driven dynamic audio advertising. The press release covers work earlier in the year for a fast food restaurant, giving a special message about delivery when it was raining, resulting in increased engagement.

• Westwood One reports that the amount of ad agencies advertising in podcasts has increased year-on-year once more, in data released ahead of the IAB Podcast Upfront 2019.