Audioboom in profit; posts 125% year-on-year revenue increase

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A few hours ago, Audioboom released its 2021 results to the stock market. The company made its first net profit ($1.4m vs a loss of $3.3m last year), and revenue was up 125% year-on-year. In Q4, their revenue per thousand downloads was $55.85, up 49%. Stuart Last, CEO, said: “Achieving profitability on both an adjusted EBITDA and net basis is transformative, establishing a self-sustaining business funded for continued growth, and reshaping shareholder value.”
“Podcasting hasn’t produced a new hit in years” claims Bloomberg, pointing to Edison Research’s data and suggesting that none of the top 25 most popular podcasts (in the US) are less than two years old.
Rate This Podcast, which offers a simple link to help your listeners rate your show (like ours), now supports Spotify. The company also says that more than 3,500 podcasters have signed up to use the tool.

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The Black & Brown Podcast Collective has announced a new initiative to increase the number of culturally competent reviews from individuals. Podcasts will be evaluated in five categories, originality, production, consistency, creativity, and overall content.
PumaPodcast, a Philippine podcast publisher, had an audience study conducted by Splice Media. The study is a fascinating look into how podcast listeners interact with their favourite shows.
AI voice clones could be hosting podcasts in the future, suggests Pacific Content. (We used an AI voice clone for our podcast in July 2020).
An anti-vaccine podcaster has died of COVID-19. Doug Kuzma was 61, and spread conspiracy theories about the vaccine.
Friends Don’t Let Friends Listen to Podcast Apps on Default Settings, claims Erik Jones on the Bello Collective, highlighting the benefit of volume boost, intelligent speed control, and other features.
Why (and how) has podcasting been “destroying” commercial talk radio, asks Tom Webster?
Registration is open for the Africa Podcast Day 2022 festival. It’s to be held on Feb 12.

Moves and hires - with Pod People

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E.B. Moss has been hired as SVP Content & Community for marketing community Brand Innovators. Within podcasting, she’s a frequent moderator at industry conferences and programmed NATPE’s ContentCast.
Annabel Wilcken has just been announced as Head of Branded Podcasts for Somethin’Else, part of Sony Music Entertainment. She’d previously been at Spotify.

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Are XLR to USB cables worth it? No, says Bandrew Scott.
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The Tech Stuff - with the podcast:transcript tag

Add open transcripts, and real-time captions, to your podcasts, using the podcast:transcript tag from the Podcast Index. Works in apps like PodcastAddict, Podverse and PodcastGuru. Good for accessibility and SEO. No need to alter your audio file, and can be added after publishing. Supported by RSS Podcasting

The podcast:liveItem tag has been formalised - allowing podcast apps to alert you when your favourite podcast is available in a live stream. It allows a schedule, as well as instant messaging that a livestream has started.
Benjamin Bellamy has written more about The Podcast Font and how to use it. We’ve also switched to using its play/pause icons throughout our website; it’s also added a lot more icons, too.
RadioCut, a podcast and radio clipping service, now sets a best-practice RSS user-agent of RadioCut/1.0 https://radiocut.fm/; they were previously using a library default. It’s added to the open OPAWG list.

Podcast News - with Quill

Quill is an award-winning podcast agency specializing in corporate audio production that drives results. Listen to some of our top-ranking branded shows from clients such as Expedia, PwC, Amdocs, TD, and more.

Produced by Quill: C Suite ▸ Join Claudette McGowan, TD Bank’s Global Executive Officer for Cyber Security, as she explores how cyber-attacks happen and what we can do to avoid them. From phishing schemes to robocalls, Claudette meets with C Suite leaders to discuss cyber challenges and ways to help people become more protected.

The Gay Agenda ▸ has been launched by Netflix, its first LGBTQ+ podcast - The Gay Agenda, produced by MOST, the home of LGBTQ+ storytelling (Twitter, Instagram). The new podcast takes a look into the lives of LGBTQ+ creatives at the top of their fields across different industries, and celebrates their success stories in the community through a loving and humorous lens. It’s produced by Multitude. - read more

Marvel’s Wastelanders: Black Widow ▸ launches today - a 10-episode scripted podcast starring Susan Sarandon as Helen Black. For a week, it’s available exclusively on the SXM App and Marvel Podcasts Unlimited on Apple Podcasts; and then it is released more widely via RSS. - read more

We all know the story about Martin Luther King - assassinated by lone gunman James Earl Ray in 1968. The MLK Tapes ▸ begs to differ: with rare recordings and never-heard-before testimonies, you might agree with the King family that it isn’t quite as cut and dry. Produced by iHeartMedia and Tenderfoot TV, it launches today.

This Is Dating ▸ is a new dating show - where four singles are set up with potential matches. You’ll eavesdrop into their dates (the good, bad and awkward), and hear how they’re getting on, from dating coach Logan Ury and the show’s (and the dates’) producers. Produced by Magnificent Noise, this show has already been acclaimed as a standout show for 2022; it launches today.

Ric Edelman is the US’s most acclaimed financial advisor, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 10 books on personal finance with more than one million copies in print in seven languages, and founder of the nation’s largest financial planning firm, ranked #1 for quality by Consumer Reports. Oh, and one of the top 100 talk show hosts in the US, too. THE TRUTH ABOUT YOUR FUTURE with Ric Edelman ▸ is his new podcast and syndicated radio show; it was launched on Jan 1.

Netflix, Audacy’s Pineapple Street Studios and Hyperobject Industries have launched The Last Movie Ever Made: The Don’t Look Up podcast ▸, a six-part oral history of the making of Don’t Look Up, Adam McKay’s Netflix disaster comedy. It launched on Friday. - read more

On 3 Clips by Castos ▸, podcasters behind some of the world’s most creative shows deconstruct their work, a few pieces at a time. A new season brings a new host, Evo Terra, and the first episode is with Michael Tripiani of the podcast How To Start A War.

States in the American West have some of the highest teen suicide and juvenile incarceration rates in the nation. For decades, Wyoming has been among the worst on both fronts. How can a place that seems so idyllic for kids also be such a harsh and unforgiving place to grow up? The Modern West ▸ looks into how children are raised in the American West in a new three-part series, from Wyoming Public Media and PRX. - read more

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