Enter the British Podcast Awards

The British Podcast Awards was created to highlight the best podcasts of the year that were made in Great Britain. The deadline for entering your podcast is March 6, 2017.

The British Podcast Awards hold a competition to showcase the best podcasts of the year. They welcome all podcast makers to enter: from big brands to bedroom publishers, charities to comedians, anyone who is helping to build an industry in which we can all be proud.

It is the only British podcast-only competition decided by independent judges. Nominees will have their shows featured on theguardian.com, as part of an exclusive podcast series showcasing all the categories.  It costs £15 per entry (plus PayPal fees).

To enter, your podcast must have been made in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. You must have created at least six episodes of a single podcast between January 2016 and December 2016. The deadline for entry is Monday, March 6, 2017. Entries should be in English. Audio must have been available to download via RSS within qualifying period.

You have to enter (up to) 4 clips – as a single MP3, up to a maximum of 15 minutes – that best describes the work that you do. You can also submit background information and/or tracklisting.

Categories include:

  • TV, Film, Games & Books
  • True Crime
  • Branded Content – the best examples of advertiser-funded podcasts
  • Comedy
  • Fiction – incorporating drama, readings, and all post truths
  • Smartest – general knowledge and fact-based fun
  • Represent – podcasts that reach audiences that traditional media fail to reach
  • Best Radio Podcast supported by UK Radioplayer
  • Best New Podcast
  • Sport
  • Interview
  • Current Affairs
  • Entertainment with Maple Street Studios
  • “Other” (AKA Most Original Podcast)

AudioBoom Partners with iHeartRadio and Spike TV

AudioBoom announced two strategic partnerships – with iHeartRadio and with Spike TV – demonstrating the company’s continued growth and focus to provide users with the ability to make content far-reaching, as well as deliver interesting and engaging audio content.

Through its collaboration with iHeartRadio, iHeartMedia’s all-in-one digital music, podcasting, and live-streaming radio service, podcasters who use audioBoom’s platform to host and distribute on-demand audio content will now have the option to reach iHeartRadio’s 95 million registered users.This partnership will provide an avenue for increased visibility, as well as audience and revenue growth.

Separately, through its branded content partnership with Spike TV, audioBoom is producing a roundtable podcast discussion dedicated to Spike TV’s upcoming six-part series, “TIME: The Kalief Browder Story,” featuring the hosts from popular true crimes podcasts including Undisclosed, Up & Vanished, Truth & Justice and Actual Innocence.

Los Angeles Podcast Festival Announces 2017 Dates

This is the sixth year of the L.A. Podcast Festival.  It will take place in the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles for the weekend of October 6th, 7th, and 8th, 2017. Several podcasts have been already been confirmed.

The L.A. Podcast Festival will be held in the Historic Millennium Biltmore Hotel. The Biltmore’s ballroom has hosted the Academy Awards in the 1930s and ’40s. The theme of this year’s L.A. Podcast Festival is “Truth, Laughter & Lies at the Historic Biltmore”.

Tickets for the L.A. Podcast Festival are on sale now. Two tiers of tickets will be available – a limited number of discounted Early Bird tickets at $99 + fees, and full-price tickets are $149 + fees.

The following podcasts have been confirmed and will be at L.A. Podcast Festival:

  • BertCast
  • WTF with Marc Maron
  • My Favorite Murder
  • Ca$hing In with T.J. Miller
  • The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds
  • Comedy Film Nerds
  • The Mental Illness Happy Hour
  • The Jackie and Laurie Show
  • The Dork Forest with Jackie Kashian
  • We Hate Movies

Additional talent will be announced in the coming months. This year’s L.A. Podcast Festival will feature live presentations of comedy podcasts (along with a few other genres).

A new feature this year is the launch of Podcast Pros, the podcast industry conference within the festival. Growing out of the panels at its past festivals, Podcast Pros will feature intimate conversations with podcast business luminaries, panels, and industry data analysis, while delivering this information with Podfest’s entertaining spirit.

Those who have been to previous L.A. Podcast Festivals will enjoy the return of the participatory Podcast Lab, the exclusive space for emerging podcasters to set up their gear and invite performers to participate in interviews and Saturday night’s All-Star Stand-up Comedy Podsmash.

HowStuffWorks Partners with AdsWizz

HowStuffWorks is an award-winning source of unbiased, reliable, easy to understand answers and explanations of how the world actually works. AdsWizz is the leading global digital audio advertising solution provider. HowStuffWorks and AdsWizz have partnered to connect adversing to the HowStuffWorks podcasts.

HowStuffWorks announced that it will bring dynamic advertising to its expansive podcast library, doubling new advertising inventory for its existing and future portfolio of leading brand partners. Powered by AdsWizz, the partnership is intended to strengthen the value of podcast advertising for brands, while maintaining an inherently intimate listening experience.

HowStuffWorks’ 12 podcast brands have amassed over 650 million downloads in the last eight years, and garner over 29 million downloads every month. With an evergreen podcast library of more than 6,000 episodes totaling over 3,000 hours of listening time, combined with dynamic ad insertion technology, HowStuffWorks is now uniquely positioned to provide a new level of scale to brands seeking to enhance their digital advertising across all platforms.

This technology partnership reinforces HowStuffWorks’ commitment to curated, live-read ad integrations that foster a personal connection with listeners.

AdsWizz has built a suite of solutions dedicated to bringing advanced advertising capabilities and extending this one-to-one experience by creating and implementing unique listening experiences informed by listener information like location, content preferences or user profile.

DirtCast is the Newest Podcast from Jezebel

Jezebel has announced the launch of their second podcast. It is called DirtCast, and it is from Jezebel and Fusion Media.

About a month ago, Jezebel launched their first podcast, Big Time Dicks.  The podcast was inspired by a similarly named Jezebel column, “Big Time Small Time Dicks”. Big Time Dicks brings listeners on an in-depth look at the laws and lawmakers that are intent on harming people on the local, state, and federal levels.

DirtCast is Jezebel’s second podcast (and the first done by Jezebel and Fusion Media Group). DirtCast is a weekly pop-culture breakdown that is based on a Jezebel column called “Dirt Bag”. The show is hosted by Bobby Finger and Madeline Davies. They break down the biggest celebrity stories, play funny games, and interview PR experts and novices alike.

New episodes will launch weekly. At the time I am writing this blog, there is a “Welcome to DirtCast” episode and two official episodes.

In Episode 1, Bobby Finger and Madeline Davies talk about Johnny Depp’s rumored debt and wine collection, the questionable choice of casting Hollywood conservatives Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn in a Blue Lives Mater movie, and whether or not Rose and Jack would have stayed together if Jack hadn’t died at the end of Titanic.

Later in the same episode, the hosts are joined by Rob Shuter of Naughty Gossip (which offers celebrity gossip). Rob Shuter worked as a PR rep for Jennifer Lozpez, Diddy, and Jessica Simpson.

The New York Times Seeks an Audio Producer

The New York Times is seeking an audio producer who will take ownership of a New York Times arts show and lead an audio team. The audio team will operate like a start-up within the larger news organization.

The New York Times audio team is seeking a show producer with a passion for the arts – books, music, film, TV, theater. This producer doesn’t need experience on those beats, but should be the kind of person who gets new books and albums as soon as they’re released and takes any excuse to go to a live show.

The producer will take ownership of a New York Times arts show. This includes: generating the concept and structure, in consultation with the host(s) and team leadership, then piloting, testing and bringing that show to market.

After the show is launched, the producer will be responsible for a range of tasks to create each episode. Those tasks include: pitching, booking, research, scriptwriting, recording in the field and in the studio, cutting tape, mixing audio, and managing the show’s distribution and promotion. The producer will also have the ability to do original reporting.

Other responsibilities include: coach New York Times reporters and editors without audio experience as hosts and guests, help source and/or report stories, upload each episode with correct metadata – on and off the New York Times platform, and promote each episode via social media and other channels.

The audio producer position is “a temporary guild position with the possibility to become staff positions”. They want someone who has a passion for podcasts and at least 3 years experience in audio production (among other skills). For full details, read the New York Times want ad.

Panoply has Canceled the About Race Podcast

The full title of the About Race podcast is: Our National Conversation About Conversations About Race. It was included in The Black Experience selection of podcasts, books, TV shows and movies that iTunes put together for Black History Month. Panoply has decided to cancel About Race.

About Race featured four “co-discussants”: Anna Holmes, Baratunde Thurston, Raquel Cepeda, and Tanner Colby. They hosted a lively, multiracial, interracial conversation about “the ways we can’t talk, don’t talk, would rather not talk, but intermittently, fitfully, embarrassingly, do talk about culture, identity, politics, power, and privilege in our pre-post-yet-still-very-racial America.”

About Race began in 2015. The last episode is titled “What have we learned?” At the time I am writing this post, some episodes are still available on SoundCloud.  It is still listed on iTunes.

Panoply made the following statement about why they chose to cancel About Race:

Panoply has made the difficult decision not to move forward with the podcast “Our National Conversation About Conversations About Race.” We loved working with Baratunde, Raquel, Tanner, and Anna over the last two years, and are proud of their important contributions to the dialog about race in America. However, frequent scheduling issues made it difficult to produce the show that we all wanted to create. Though the cancellation was unrelated to the current political climate, we regret the timing. Ending it now is painful, but a growing company like ours must make hard decisions, and this was one of the hardest. Now more than ever, Panoply recognizes the urgent need for diverse voices and frank conversions, and we’re committed to covering the important topics of race and ethnicity in America. Please stay tuned!

I’m not sure what, exactly, Panoply is asking people to “please stay tuned” for.  It is unclear, and uncertainty can lead to speculation.  A quick glance at the About Race Twitter (@showaboutrace) and its Facebook page show that there are many fans who are disappointed that the podcast has been canceled. Several people commented that America needs podcasts like About Race right now.

Huzza has been Acquired by Kickstarter

Huzza announced earlier this month that it had been acquired by Kickstarter. Unfortunately for those who are using Huzza and enjoying it, this acquirement means that Huzza will be shutting down at the end of February.

The announcement was posted by Nick Smit and Justin Womersley, the co-founders of Huzza. They explained a bit about why they are shutting down Huzza:

Choosing to shutdown Huzza was an incredibly difficult decision for us, especially as Kickstarter gave us the opportunity to keep the platform going. Our mission with Huzza has always been to help creators connect and more deeply engage with their communities, and we felt that we can have a bigger impact on creators by focusing our efforts on Kickstarter.

Current users of Huzza have until March 1, 2017, to export their recordings, chat messages, Q&As, selfies, and subscriber details. After that date, your data will no longer be available via Huzza. (That includes embeds). Huzza will be refunding all subscriptions for the month of February and canceling all subscriptions thereafter.

Kickstarter posted some information about the acquisition of Huzza on its blog:

With the acquisition of Huzza, Justin and Nick now join Kickstarter full-time to develop Kickstarter Live in exciting new directions. We’ve opened a new office in Vancouver’s historic Gastown neighborhood where they’re building a team of engineers and designers to help them lead that work.

NATJA Announced their 2016 Winners

The North American Travel Journalists Association (NATJA) announced the winners of its 2016 NATJA Travel Media Awards Competition.

Awards were given to publications, travel journalists, and photographers whose work was published in print and online media from September 2015 through August 2016. This year, NATJA included awards for audio as well.

The awards included several categories, all of which included a Gold winner (First Place), a Silver winner (Second Place) and a Bronze winner (Third Place). The 2016 Grand Prize winners included the following categories: Publication, Photography, Travel Journalism, and Destination Marketing Organization.

Category 161 was titled “Travel Broadcast – Audio”. The winners were:

Gold: Chris Christensen, “Travel to Far West China (Xinjiang) – Amateur Traveler Episode 515”, AmateurTraveler.com

Silver: Tonya and Ian Fitzpatrick, “Exploring Malta”, World Footprints Radio Show

Bronze: Efrain Villa, “NPR Morning Edition -Travel Nightmares: Mistaken for a Deity”, NPR Morning Edition 

Finalists:

Tonya and Ian Fitzpatrick, “Life along Paris’s rue des Martyr”, World Footprints Radio Show

Tonya and Ian Fitzpatrick “Magical Martinique: The Island of Flowers,” World Footprints Radio Show

Winners (from all the categories) will be recognized at the 2017 NATJA Conference & Marketplace which will be held on May 16-20, 2017. The Conference will be hosted by the Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

StarTalk Playing With Science has Joined Midroll

Midroll announced that the StarTalk Playing with Science podcast has joined the Midroll roster for exclusive representation to advertisers. StarTalk Playing with Science originally debuted on the StarTalk podcast network.

StarTalk Playing with Science is hosted by comedian Chuck Nice and sportscaster and professional soccer player Gary O’Reilly. The podcast is described as “where geeks and jocks collide.” Each episode investigates one incredible moment in the history of sports, bringing together scientists, product designers, coaches, pundits and professional athletes to use science to shine a light on just what made it so great.

Episodes include an explanation of the technology that helped Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt become the fastest human ever, and the physics behind NBA player Steph Curry’s 40-foot-set-shot. Other upcoming guests include world-class athletes such as Lance Armstrong, Hope Solo, and Odell Beckham Jr.

StarTalk Playing with Science is produced in partnership with Midroll and Stitcher. The podcast is available on iTunes, Google Play, and SoundCloud. Shows will be available to watch ad free on Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, and Roku for subscribers to StarTalk All-Access.