OZY Media shuts down after reports about business practices

3.7 minutes to read · Your daily briefing for podcasting and on-demand, with 20,431 subscribers; issue #1136 · Subscribe to this newsletter free; and join your peers in supporting us · Share this update on the web

About, Privacy · Advertise · Articles

Used by Guy Raz, Hillary Clinton, Disney, and Spotify, Riverside․fm is the leading podcast creation platform. iOS App available. Record WAV Audio and 4K Video, and automate Post-Production. Starting from $7.50 a month.

Ozy Media has announced it is to shut down, after a number of reports about the company’s business practices. There were question marks over what the company had told investors, advertisers, employees and guests; and the impact could still affect other media companies. Carlos Watson, the co-founder and CEO of Ozy Media, has resigned from the NPR Board. The company had five podcasts, including co-productions with iHeartMedia and the BBC.
71% of younger (25-40 year-old) public radio fans use podcasts, accordings to Jacobs Media’s’ Public Radio Techsurvey 2021. Only three-quarters of public radio fans use a radio at home; and for millennials, that figure drops to 55%. In total, 39% of public radio fans listen to podcasts every week.
- Even among public radio fans, however, The Daily ▸ from the New York Times fares better than NPR’s own podcasts, NPR News Now ▸ or Up First ▸.
In case you missed an email, Anchor “identified an issue that caused plays to be undercounted between Sep 8-14”. It recalculated all data on Sep 21.

Classifieds - your job or ad here

Get Cozy with Snoozecast — Fall asleep faster listening to our vast catalog of soothing sleep stories. New episodes every M/W/F! Over 400 stories available *for free* wherever you listen to podcasts, or on snoozecast.com.

Are you ready to spiritually evolve? — Follow the Cultivating Spiritual Curiosity podcast to shed the person you think you are to uncover the person you are meant to be! Listen to the soul awakening stories wherever you listen to podcasts.

Video Editor — Kast Media is seeking an experienced video editor to join our expert Technical Team.

Your next big revenue stream? Podcast subscription — “If you bet on yourself, the size of the market is bigger than you could have ever, ever imagined.” - Saagar Enjeti, Breaking Points podcast. See how Supercast helps make it happen.

How to Make Podcasting Your Side Hustle — Learn how to launch and grow a hit podcast from Side Hustle Pro podcast host Nicaila Matthews Okome

Spotify's now interactive? Well, sort of. — You still have to read your screen and type answers. Zivoze is the hands-free & eyes-free route to true podcast interactivity. Download the app, then username 'interactive,' password 'really.'

Fireside Chat has made changes to its terms and conditions. The main change corrects a layout problem, but the company also asked you “to use commercially reasonable efforts” to notify Fireside if you plan to commercialise content you make on the service (which is curious, since the company has been at pains to point out that you own your content anyway). Here’s what’s changed.
Melinda Wittstock, the CEO and founder of Podopolo, has published an open letter to “clear up some misconceptions”. It follows a story in Friday’s Podnews about “poorly worded” tweets.
Podpage has a new feature to import all videos from your YouTube channel into your podpage website. Here’s an example from Miss Ileane’s Anchor Show.
Podtube is a “platform and social network just for podcasts”, according to a piece in The Times of India. It appears to not use RSS. Meanwhile, the New Indian Express’s Indulge website looks at independent podcasters from Kerala.
David Couch has joined podcast publisher Auddy as Chief Revenue Officer. He joins from Deezer and SoundCloud.

The Tech Stuff - with RSS․com

Because every podcast needs an RSS feed, RSS․com helps thousands of new podcasters know how to start a podcast every month.

RadioPublic, the Podbean app, and TuneIn are among those that have not updated any shows hosted on Anchor since Sep 30. We suspect this is related to the expiration of an old root certificate for Let’s Encrypt. Podnews’s webserver also failed to connect to Anchor RSS feeds from Oct 1 (or our own internal tools which also use Let’s Encrypt); we had to patch our server. The fix is for RadioPublic, Podbean and TuneIn to implement, not Anchor.
Open-source Android podcast app AntennaPod is curious about an apparent drop in users over the last few days. Any clues for them? (We wonder if it’s related to the above?)
RSS feeds on LibsynPro infrastructure appear to being migrated to standard libsyn․com feeds.
In case you wondered, last week Podnews made 4,536 sats from listening to the show, and a further 29,956 from boosts. That’s $16.40 just last week. In total so far, we’ve made $188. Even though it’s very early days, that’ll pay for a decent round of drinks, so if your podcast isn’t value4value-enabled, we’d recommend doing so.

Tips and tricks - with Muck Rack's State of Podcasting Survey

State of Podcasting survey - Muck Rack is conducting research to help podcasters & media pros understand trends in podcasting, from booking guests and running promotions, to measuring success and pitch preferences. Take the 5-minute survey, and we'll send you early access to the results when released (unless you elect to remain anonymous).

How to get Your Podcast That all-Important 5-Star Review - Riverside suggests, among other things, reading reviews out on your show.
This Agent Sees a Future for Actors in Podcasting — Are You Next? - Backstage Magazine, a publication for the acting profession, reckons the acting community should so take notice, darling!

Podcast News

Unholier than thou ▸ returns for season two: Crooked Media’s podcast that explores the intersection of the saintly and secular. Hosted by Philip Picardi, the trailer’s now available, and the new show starts Friday.

Also launching today, Because of Anita ▸, looking at the testimony of Professor Anita Hill in the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas. It’s from The Meteor and Pineapple Street Studios.

The Guardian’s Today in Focus ▸ goes inside the Pandora papers, one of the biggest leaks of financial data in history, showing how 35 current and former world leaders, and over 300 public officials, have used offshore companies to avoid paying tax.

Podjobs

Head of Policy Communications, Interactive Advertising Bureau, Inc. - New York NY, USA
Producer & Host, Patheos - Remote, working with a USA-based team
Growth Marketing Manager (Multimedia), Morning Brew - New York, USA

This shows the latest additions. See 33 more jobs and add yours, free