Hot Pod is The Verge’s premier audio industry newsletter, delivering news, analysis, and opinions on how the audio world is changing.
In a call with investors Tuesday morning, Spotify CFO Paul Vogel said that the company’s podcasting business is on track to (finally) become profitable. This follows a year of deep cuts to the podcasting arm, including the dissolution of Gimlet.
It’s been almost a year since Elon Musk took over Twitter and, well, a lot of things have happened since then. Now, after previously diving into the backstories of dating apps, Meta, and Tesla, the Vox Media podcast Land of the Giants launches a new season about Twitter, its richest user, and “why Twitter’s cultural and political influence far exceeds its size,” hosted by Peter Kafka.
New episodes will arrive weekly starting on October 25th, and you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or other podcast apps.
Spotify has partnered with late-night hosts Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver to launch Strike Force Five. The proceeds will go to benefit the staff of their shows, who have also been out of work due to the ongoing Hollywood strike.
After disappearing from Apple Podcasts on Wednesday, all episodes of The Glenn Beck Program are back online, the host confirmed. The company has not responded to a request for comment from The Verge.
This likely signals the end of the conservative outcry over the podcast’s removal, which lasted roughly six hours.
Conservative host Glenn Beck accused Apple of removing all episodes of The Glenn Beck Program today — without any apparent reason. Senator JD Vance (R-OH) went even further, accusing Apple of “election interference.”
A new feature lets users import full shows via their RSS feed and link them to shorter clips — potentially a big new way to boost discovery.
TikTok’s global product communications manager Zachary Kizer confirmed that the company is testing the podcast feature with some US users, but declined to share further details.
Russian communications regulator Roskomnadzor has amped up its censorship push since the country invaded Ukraine last year, and it asked Apple earlier this year to remove the news podcast from Meduza, a Latvian-based independent outlet that publishes news about Russia.
Now Meduza says it received the following notice from Apple, with no mention of what the issue is that apparently needs to be resolved.
We found an issue with your show, Что случилось [What Happened], which must be resolved before it’s available on Apple Podcasts. Your show has been removed from Apple Podcasts.
The podcast is still available on Spotify, Google Podcasts, and YouTube, as well as within Meduza’s app on iOS or Android.
In this episode of Andscape’s Rap Stories podcast series, David Dennis and Curren$y recap the “blog era” of rap music that existed in the late ‘00s by pinpointing exactly why it was so relatable.
There are other podcasts specifically dedicated to this period, but the Smoking Section alum and Pilot Talk artist are more qualified than most to talk about what it was like.
Also, has SAG-AFTRA answered anyone’s emails?
The two companies today announced they’re teaming up to bring new business podcasts to the LinkedIn Podcast Network by both co-producing new podcasts and licensing existing business podcasts, according to a release viewed in advance by Hot Pod.
Given that LinkedIn’s power users are likely already heavy consumers of business podcasts, this union makes sense. On top of that, iHeart will have a chance to lure new podcasters by offering up hosting and monetization tools on LinkedIn.
