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• Podcasts are not on media plans because podcast ads are “too difficult to buy”, said SoundStack’s Rockie Thomas at the asi International Radio & Audio Conference in Venice, yesterday. Podcasting offers “immense and varied ad options,” she said, adding that brand suitability tools have brought many new advertisers to the medium, and calling for clearer data and alignment with language used to sell radio ads.
• Also at the asi conference, Triton Digital’s Darryl Battaglia spoke about the opportunities of sharing data to better see the rest of the podcast landscape and help with cross-publisher promos to grow the medium; meanwhile RAJAR’s John Carroll reminded the audience that podcasting in the UK is just a 6% share of all audio listening. “Many podcast publishers have a video-first strategy for their podcasts, but are only monetising their audio,” he observed.
• The FTC announced in August new rules about fake reviews and testimonials, and has taken action against a fake review website. Meanwhile, a new rule against deceptive endorsements went into law on Oct 13 - if you just pretend that you’re a user of a product (among other things) then you could face fines of up to $43,000.

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• Buzzsprout has posted another record download share for Spotify: the app was responsible for 41.5% of all downloads in October. Apple Podcasts is up, however, to 30.4%. Downloads via web browsers almost halved month-on-month.
• Spotify for Podcasters is still the #1 podcast hosting company, in terms of share of new episodes. Spreaker increased its hold on the #2 slot; Buzzsprout remains at #3. Acast has moved up to #8, with an all-time record share of 2.5%.
• Podcast hosting company Ausha announced integration with automation platform Zapier. The tools allow you to automate a variety of tasks in more than 6,000 apps, including notifications whenever you post a new episode.
• Transistor announced integration with Kit, formerly ConvertKit, to embed podcast episodes directly in your email newsletters.

Focus

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Tips and tricks

• Updated earlier this week with all the latest, our article on how to understand podcast stats delves into what you really need to know about your numbers - and where to find them.

Moves and Hires

• Adam Fruscella is now Director of Advertising Sales at RedCircle. He joins from Paramount, Spotify and Megaphone.
• Ame Fuhlbruck has been hired at RedCircle as Senior Account Executive. She joins from True Native Media.

Podcast News

• The Road to Joni reaches its season finale today, on Joni Mitchell’s 81st birthday. The series has included interviews with artists and some non-musicians about their own roads to Joni Mitchell, where that road has led them, and how they see Joni’s artistic road as an influence on music and culture as we know it today. Host Carmel Holt has been driving a branded Rivian R1S, the show’s sponsors, on a cross-country road trip - with, as you can see above, some fancy branding.
• The live stream for The Rest is Politics during the presidential election saw 2mn views over an 18-hour period. The podcast got an additional 600,000 downloads during that time. You can catch up with part one and part two; and on Spotify. It was produced by Dizplai at Spotify’s NYC studios.

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