podToPod Creator Joins Interview Valet as Director of Podcast Relations

Interview Valet logoHere at Podcaster News, we follow a lot of different channels in our efforts to bring you newsworthy items about the podcasting space. One such resource is the podToPod newsletter, published by Joe Berman. podToPod has been consistently rounding up items of interest to podcasters and releasing them via e-mail since June of 2014.

Joe reached out to me this week to let me know that he has accepted a position as Director of Podcast Relations at Interview Valet, a new service that helps podcasters book guests for their shows:

Interview Valet (IV) is the concierge-level podcast guest booking service providing the fastest way for executives, businesses, & thought leaders to maximize the benefits of podcasting.

Our premium ‘hands free’ solution takes care of everything but the speaking to reach your ideal audience with the least amount of snags or hassle.

IV’s all-inclusive system empowers clients with interview preparation, Certified Guest™ training, and personalized attention that ensures you, the podcast guest or host, the best experience in the podcast industry.

In his message to me, Joe elaborated on this, stating that Interview Valet is working to build relationships with podcasters in order to find guests that are matched to the types of shows they produce. This approach should help to ensure that podcasters who use Interview Valet will book the right guests for their show’s niche.

Check out the Interview Valet website for pricing and other information on the service. And congratulations to Joe Berman on his new position as their Director of Podcast Relations!

Portland Podcast Cooperative is Having a Meet Up

Portland Podcast CooperativePortland Podcast Cooperative is a meet up group that is meant for people who create (or who want to create) interesting, innovative, and oftentimes thought provoking podcasts. If you are a podcast host, producer, writer, actor/actress, storyteller, editor, mixer, musician, engineer, SFX specialist, or content creator, this may be the group for you. It appears to be intended for podcast creators who live in Portland.

The Portland Podcast Cooperative is having a meet up event on June 9, 2016. The title of this meetup is: “Podcast Cooperative: Mingle, Chat with Roustabouts & Dr. Kiki Too”. This event is organized by Mark Grimes.

The meetup event will take place at NedSpace Broadway in Portland, Oregon. The event will give participants a look at Portland’s first downtown podcast studio, A.K.A., Bigfoot Podcast Studio.

During the evening, Dr. Kiki Sanford, hostess of This Week in Science will share some podcast insights. This Week In Science is a weekly, hour-long web and radio show that presents a humorous, often opinionated, and irreverent look at the week in science and technology. The podcast has been running weekly for ten years. There will be a Q & A following Dr. Kiki Sanford’s presentation.

In addition, the meet up event will give Portland podcasters the opportunity to mingle, chat, and talk with other Portland podcasters. The event is intended to be casual and fun. Those who would like to attend need to RSVP.

U.S. Energy Department Has Its Own Podcast

Direct Current logoEnergy.Gov is the official website for the United States Department of Energy. The mission of the Energy Department is “to ensure America’s security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental and nuclear changes through transformative science and technology solutions.” The Energy Department recently started its very own podcast.

Direct Current is the name of the Energy.Gov podcast. They definitely picked a smart, appropriate, name for the show! Direct Current is a podcast about energy – the kind that lights our homes, powers our lives and shapes our world.

The podcast is from the U.S. Department of Energy’s digital team in Washington, D.C. It will bring you “fresh, insightful stories of how we generate and use electricity, what that means for the planet and the cutting-edge science that’s driving a global energy force.”

The team behind the podcast includes:

* Matt Dozier – Digital Content Specialist, Office of Public Affairs

* Allison Lantero – Digital Content Specialist, Office of Public Affairs

* Simon Edelman – Chief Creative Officer

* Marissa Newhall – Director of Digital Strategy and Communications

* Daniel Wood – Data Visualization and Cartographic Specialist, Office of Public Affairs

* Carly Wilkins – Multimedia Designer

* Pat Adams – Digital Content Specialist, Office of Public Affairs

* Paul Lester – Digital Content Specialist, Office of Public Affairs

Episode 1 is titled: “Tackling the Hidden Costs of Rooftop Solar”. In the episode, the team investigates the “soft costs” driving up the price of rooftop solar, delves into the archives for a look at the turbulent times of the Energy Department’s creation, and contemplates some alternatives to the name “Direct Current”.

There is also an Episode 1.5 that is titled: “Direct Current Teaser”. It gives listeners a sneak preview of what’s coming up on future episodes of Direct Current.

Wondery Adds Three More Podcasts

Wondery logoWondery was founded earlier this year by Hernan Lopez, the former CEO of Fox International Channels. In March, Wondery added some staff. Recently, Wondery has added three more podcasts to its network.

In March of 2016, Jeffery Glaser joined Wondery as president of content. (Previously, he was the head of current programing at 20th Century Fox Television.) Christina Haro was appointed as account executive, brand solutions, at Wondery that same month. The original plan was for Wondery to begin releasing its first batch of shows by summer of 2016.

The newly added shows are:

Ruby: The Adventures of a Galactic Gumshoe was created by audio drama pioneer Thomas Lopez of ZBS. Ruby is a “smart, tough, sexy detective” that has been hired to track down the malefactors who are manipulating the media on planet Summa Nulla.

Radio Drama Revival is hosted by David Rheinstrom and produced twice a month. Radio Drama Revival showcases a piece of top-quality audio fiction made by independent and professional producers alike. It covers a variety of genres “from historical epics, to science fiction, from spine-tingling horror and suspense, to wacky situation comedies, from intimate dramas to experimental sound art.”

The Cleansed is described as: “Equal parts “Mad Max” and “The Stand”, this post apocalyptic saga is set in a world 15 years after the collapse of the world as we know it.” It is an epic serialized audio drama adventure with 30+ actors, cinematic sound design, and original music.

Those three shows join with the three that had previously been added to the Wondery network. Real Crime Profile focuses on profiling the behavior of people from real criminal cases. Mad About Movies is described as “your go-to podcast for all things cinema”. Thirty Twenty Ten is a pop culture time machine that examines TV, movies, music, and video games from the 80s, 90s, and 2000s

Auphonic Edit Is a Non-Destructive Audio Editor For Android Devices

Auphonic logoCompared to other platforms, Google’s Android operating system has been somewhat lacking in good podcast-production apps. Audio software developer Auphonic is working to change that with the release of Auphonic Edit 1.0 for Android.

Auphonic Edit is a non-destructive audio editor and recorder with a focus on ease of use and high-quality audio. Combined with Auphonic’s integrated web service, users can access all of the post-processing and publishing tools Auphonic is known for.

Here are some features offered in Auphonic Edit 1.0:

  • Render audio sessions into uncompressed WAV or compressed AAC files and share with any other Android app on the device.
  • Upload audio files, including metadata and chapter marks, in the background directly from the application to Auphonic’s web service.
  • Encode audio files in MP3, Opus, AAC/MP4, Ogg Vorbis, ALAC, FLAC, WAV, and more.
  • Loudness normalization to new broadcast standards: EBU R128, ATSC A/85, mobile audio, and more.
  • Intelligent leveler: Balances levels between speakers, music, and speech – no compressor knowledge required.
  • Automatic noise and hum reduction.
  • Publish your finished files automatically via YouTube, SoundCloud, Podlove Publisher, Spreaker, Libsyn, Blubrry, Archive.org, Dropbox, (S)FTP, HTTP, Google Drive, WebDAV, Amazon S3, and more.

Auphonic Edit 1.0 is available as a free download from the Google Play Store.

Tape Festival will Happen in June

Tape Festival logoTape Festival is a live, unrecorded radio show. It brings together some of the best radio makers and storytellers under one roof for one night only. The evening is accompanied by stunning visuals, recorded audio, and live music. This year, for the very first time, Tape Festival will have an after-party-dance-party.

Mooj Zadie is the founder and executive director of Tape Festival. The assistant producer is Sylvie Douglis. The tech wizard is Mickey Capper. The poster art was designed by Phil Jasen. Tape Festival is described on its Facebook page as “a unique one-night event of storytelling and creative live performances, combining the intimacy of radio with a collective experience. Like a film festival – sans film – it’s one big listening party.”

Tape Festival will take place on Wednesday, June 29, 2016. It will start at 7:30 p.m and end at 11:30 pm (EDT). It will take place in Brooklyn, New York, at Roulette. Tickets are available. That being said, Tape Festival tweeted on May 27, 2016, that they may sell out soon.

Some of the line-up at Tape Festival include:

* Scott Carrier – Host of Home of the Brave, and a This American Life contributor

* Michael May – Senior Producer of NPR Story Lab

* Mike Pesca – Host of Slate’s The Gist

The after-party will feature DJ Autopilot (Sean Rameswaram). It will be the first after-party-dance-party for Tape Festival. The event details on the website you can purchase the tickets from suggests: “Bring cash for the bar.” It also says that the event is wheelchair accessible via a ramp on Atlantic avenue.

Podtrac Launches Podcast Industry’s First Rankings

Podtrac logoPodtrac, a leading podcast measurement and advertising company, announced that the company will divide its services and offer them under two separate brands: Podtrac for independent audience measurement and analytics, and Authentic for podcast advertising services.

Podtrac announced the first Podcast Industry Audience Rankings, a free monthly ranking of the top 10 podcast publishers, by a new industry metric “US Unique Monthly Audiences”. The metric quantifies monthly audience size by publisher across all shows and episodes they produce.

Podtrac is measuring 90% of the top podcast publishers and plans to have close to 100% participation in the weeks ahead. It currently has placed NPR, This American Life/Serial, WNYC Studios, HowStuffWorks and TWIT at the top of the list.

The current ranking report from Podtrac covers 28 million unique monthly US listeners, 3.85% million global, and 169 million unique downloads. The complete ranking is available at http:podtrac.com.industry-rankings.

Podtrac has been a leader in podcast advertising and measurement, representing high-quality popular podcasts and advertisers, and has measured and analyzed more than seven billion unique downloads across 10,000 of the most popular podcasts for 10 years. Podtrac wrote the first white paper on podcast measurement in 2005 and has provided advertisers with the demographics data on thousands of podcasts to identify the shows that best meet their target demographic.

Authentic provides advertising services for podcasts and advertisers. Authentic represents high-quality popular podcasts including This American Life, Serial, This Week in Tech, Alice Isn’t Dead, Psychobabble with Tyler Oakley and Korey Kuhl, and hundreds of other top podcasts. Ads are delivered in the tone and voice of each show to their highly-engaged audiences.

Authentic’s ad services started in 2005 as Podtrac ad services working with more brands than any other podcast company. Authentic will continue to leverage its years of learning to offer the most comprehensive ad services for the podcast industry. With Podtrac’s new metrics, advertisers and podcast publishers can now access the unique monthly reach of each podcast publisher across all the shows they produce to better inform their podcast advertising planning and content decisions.

PRX Announces RadioPublic

RadioPublic logoPRX, the award-winning public media company, announced it has formed RadioPublic, a new hybrid company building a mobile listening platform for on-demand radio and podcasts. RadioPublic is aiming to create a new listening experience, featuring content discovery, exclusive offers, and fan engagement.

PRX is a leading creator and distributor that is shaping the future of public media content, talent, and technology. It connects audio producers with their most engaged, supportive audiences across broadcast, web, and mobile. RadioPublic is a mobile listening platform for on-demand radio and podcasts founded by PRX. As a Public Benefit Corporation, RadioPublic shares public media’s educational, artistic, and journalistic mission, and the democratic values of open access to information.

RadioPublic has secured funding from leading investors including Project 11, The New York Times, Knight Foundation Enterprise Fund, UP2398, American Public Media, McClatchy and Homebrew. Jake Shapiro, founding chief executive of PRX will lead the new venture as CEO. Kerri Hoffman, who has also been with PRX since its start, will become PRX’s CEO.

When RadioPublic launches later this year, its listeners will have access to top podcasts as well as PRX’s full catalog, including The Moth Radio Hour, 99% Invisible, Reveal, the Radiotopia podcast network, and the Remix story channel. RadioPublic will also integrate with PRX’s dynamic ad product, Dovetail, which powers Serial and other signature shows.

Parsec Awards 2016 Seeking Podcast Nominations

UnknownThe Parsec Awards was founded in 2006 to celebrate Speculative Fiction Podcasting, under the banner of Farpoint Media. The founders were Mur Lafferty, Michael R. Mennenga and Tracy Hickman. The Parsec Awards is currently seeking podcast nominations for 2016.

It is easy to nominate a podcast for consideration in the 2016 Parsec Awards. Read the category descriptions before you make a nomination (to make sure the podcast you want to nominate is appropriate for the Parsec Awards).

Next, make sure that podcast has not already been nominated. If the podcast is appropriate, and hasn’t already been nominated, it is a good idea to make that nomination yourself.

The Parsec Awards consider a podcast to be “audio or video delivered as part of a syndicated series that can be downloaded or streamed online. Listeners or viewers must be able to subscribe to updates that are either delivered automatically or are made available to the subscriber in some aggregated format.”

The Categories for the 2016 Parsec Awards are:

* Best Speculative Fiction Story: Small Cast (Short Form)

* Best Speculative Fiction Story: Small Cast (Novella Form)

* Best Speculative Fiction Story: Small Cast (Long Form)

* Best Speculative Fiction Story: Large Cast (Short Form)

* Best Speculative Fiction Story: Large Cast (Long Form)

* Best Speculative Fiction Audio Drama (Short Form)

* Best Speculative Fiction Audio Drama (Long Form)

* Best Speculative Fiction Video Story

* Best Speculative Fiction Magazine or Anthology Podcast

* Best New Speculative Fiction Podcaster/Team

* Best Speculative Fiction Fan or News Podcast (Specific)

* Best Speculative Fiction Fan or News Podcast (General)

* Best Podcast about Speculative Fiction Content Creation

* Best Fact Behind the Fiction Podcast

* Best Speculative Fiction Comedy/Parody Podcast

Peoples Choice, Academy of Podcasters Awards Nominees Announced

Podcast Awards logoSummer is fast approaching and it’s apparently become the season of podcast awards. Two different podcast awards competitions, the Peoples Choice Podcast Awards and the Academy of Podcasters Awards, both recently announced the nominees for their respective award categories. While there may be some minor overlap between the two awards systems, they both work differently and completely independent of each other.

The Peoples Choice Podcast Awards is now in its 11th round. Commonly referred to as just “the Podcast Awards,” nominees for this awards system are determined by online voting, followed by a vetting and qualification period. Then, podcasts are chosen to compete in the following categories:

  • Peoples Choice
  • Arts
  • Business
  • Comedy
  • Education
  • Entertainment
  • Games & Hobbies GLBT
  • Government & Organizations
  • Health
  • Kids & Family
  • Mature
  • Music
  • News & Politics
  • Religion & Spirituality
  • Science & Medicine
  • Society – Culture
  • Sports & Recreation
  • Technology
  • TV & Film

Just like the nomination process, the Peoples Choice Podcast Awards winners are determined via online voting, which officially open Sunday, May 29th.

Academy of Podcasters Awards and HOF 2016The Academy of Podcasters Awards operate in a closed-ballot system. Finalists are chosen by the Academy, and only members of the Academy are allowed to vote for shows in these categories:

  • Arts
  • Business
  • Comedy
  • Education
  • Fiction
  • Food & Drink
  • Games & Hobbies
  • Health & Fitness
  • History
  • Kids & Family
  • Music & Commentary
  • News & Politics
  • Religion & Spirituality
  • Science & Medicine
  • Society & Culture
  • Sports & Recreation
  • Technology
  • TV & Film

Academy of Podcasters Awards winners will be announced during a ceremony on Wednesday, July 6th in conjunction with the Podcast Movement conference.