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Spotify is sorry that it revealed how many people listen to your podcast

2025-05-16T12:09:36-04:00

Spotify announced earlier this month that podcast creators and listeners would get a new data point: how many plays an episode has gotten. The idea, according to Spotify, was that listeners could discover new shows they hadn't heard of, enticed by this new public measure of fandom.

Podcasters did not see it that way.

Since the announcement, podcasters, especially those with smaller audiences, have been upset at the new public play count. The chief complaint was that some podcasters actually don't want listeners to know how many people are listening to their podcast, because it might have the opposite effect: it could turn people off to k …

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A new Mission to Zyxx spin-off podcast is on the way

2025-03-18T20:24:31-04:00

It has been years since the excellent sci-fi improv comedy podcast Mission to Zyxx ended, but the crew of the Bargarean Jade are getting back together for a new adventure.

While Mission to Zyxx's original Star Wars / Star Trek-lampooning story came to a dramatic close with the show's fifth season, Maximum Fun announced today that it's producing a new eight-episode-long spin-off show. Rather than focusing on the Bargarean Jade's journeys through the Zyxx quadrant, The Young Old Derf Chronicles will delve into the history of Old Derf (Justin Tyler) - one of the legendary Zima Warriors (think Jedis, but with sticks instead of lightsabers) task …

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Rooster Teeth is coming back

2025-02-06T12:54:59-05:00

Rooster Teeth - the studio behind animated web series such as RWBY, Red vs. Blue, and Gen:Lock - seemed like it was shuttering for good last year. The company announced that it was winding down operations due to parent company Warner Bros. Discovery's inability to find a party interested in buying the production outfit. But in an interesting turn of events, Rooster Teeth is now coming back under the leadership of one of its original co-founders.

On Wednesday, Rooster Teeth announced that it and many of its assets have been acquired by Box Canyon Productions, a company owned by Rooster Teeth co-founder Burnie Burns. In a statement about the …

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The NSA’s podcast will have you listening in on them this time

2024-09-04T18:14:44-04:00

The National Security Agency (NSA) will start sharing stories about some of the agency's past missions in a new podcast. Dubbed No Such Podcast, the podcast will initially focus on foreign signals intelligence and cybersecurity in the first two episodes, both of which will be available to listen to starting tomorrow, September 5th.

For years, the work of the NSA has been a closely kept secret. Then, in 2013, former agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked secret information about surveillance programs like PRISM and Boundless Informant. Outrage and intense debate over the agency's actions quickly followed, and it continues to this day.

Now, …

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Taylor Swift’s podcaster boyfriend has a new deal with Amazon

2024-08-27T10:36:55-04:00

Travis and Jason Kelce after the 2024 AFC Championship. | Photo: Patrick Smith / Getty Images

Taylor Swift's boyfriend, Travis Kelce, and his brother Jason have inked a $100 million deal to hand over distribution of their sports podcast series, New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce, to Amazon's Wondery publisher, reports The Wall Street Journal. The deal gives subscribers to Wondery Plus "early and ad-free" access to the popular series, Amazon announced.

Wondery Plus subscribers will also get a once-a-year livestream of the Kelces' show, according to the Journal. Otherwise, folks who listen to New Heights (which launched in 2022 and has since become one of the top US podcasts) on other platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or w …

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Voices from Gaza are coming through in podcasts

2024-06-01T09:00:00-04:00

Unsettled host Ilana Levinson spent two months trying to reach one of her contacts in Gaza for an interview. She had stayed in touch with Isam Hammad, a manager for a medical equipment company in Gaza City, since covering his work organizing the March of Return protest in 2018. But after he fled the city in November, the two hadn't shared much more than the occasional WhatsApp voice note with one another.

When Levinson finally got ahold of Hammad in January, he was in Rafah, trying to get his family to Ireland on a family reunification visa. "I have no internet," he said. "I have had to wake up every night since I made my [visa] application …

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The podcast industry keeps reinventing itself

2024-04-18T14:30:00-04:00

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This is Hot Pod, The Verge's newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry.

Today is my last day at The Verge, and this will be my final issue of Hot Pod. I'll have one more story coming out in the next week or two. But until then, I wanted to offer some parting thoughts on the industry I have covered so closely for the past two years.

I have this thing in my career where I always get to the party too late. I joined my college newspaper just as it was becoming clear that printing a daily no longer mathed out. I had a good year at the Melissa Harris-Perry show on MSNBC shortly before the beloved executive producer left and the program …

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Spotify bought Parcast — now its founder is launching a new entertainment studio

2024-04-16T12:26:11-04:00

Parcast founder Max Cutler left Spotify last February as part of a wave of high-profile departures from its podcast vertical, and he's now launching Pave Studios to create content across multiple formats. "Storytellers who successfully engage audiences and create fandoms through written, audio, and video content have led the charge in cultivating their robust communities into diverse businesses," said Cutler.

The company has two new brands to start, with OpenMind, which focuses on wellness, and the true crime-geared Crime House.

Spotify acquired the true crime and horror-focused studio Parcast in 2019 as part of a $1 billion investment in …

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An NPR editor accuses the network of institutional bias

2024-04-11T17:00:00-04:00

This is Hot Pod, The Verge's newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry.

Hi, everyone - I'm starting off today with some big news to share: next week will be my last at Hot Pod and The Verge. Before coming here, all I wanted was to cover the podcasting industry, and I still can't believe I managed to get a job doing just that. Even when the news was bad (which, let's be real, was often), I was buoyed by the passion and innovation of this community. It's been a real privilege getting to know so many of you.

I'll have a few more stories coming out before I leave as well as some final thoughts on the state of the industry. My colleag …

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Ted Cruz hosts a podcast for free — a Ted Cruz super PAC gets paid

2024-04-09T18:45:00-04:00

This is Hot Pod, The Verge's newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.

I hope you all had a great weekend/eclipse/first moment of NYC sunshine. Today, I've got a look at Ted Cruz's eyebrow-raising arrangement with iHeart and news on two new acquisitions. Let's get into it.

iHeart doesn't pay Ted Cruz for hosting Verdict. It pays a Ted Cruz super PAC.

This is certainly one way to raise campaign money. Sen. Ted Cruz hosts an iHeartMedia podcast, Verdict, which performs reasonably well among right-wing political shows. He does not get paid for hosting the podcast, but reporting in recent weeks from Forbes and …

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