From our daily newsletter, the latest from podnews.net with Podscribe. Audacy is to shut down Pineapple Street Studios. Nearly 30 employees are to be laid off. Pineapple Street had been bought by Audacy in 2019 for $18 million. Audacy will continue making some shows. Audacy itself emerged from bankruptcy in January. It was reportedly looking for a buyer for the company in March.
Well, Audacy shut Cadence 13, a $50 million purchase in March 2024, and rebranded Podcorn, a $22.5 million purchase, as Odyssey Creator Lab in April of this year. Meanwhile, Audacy's purchase of Moonbeam, a podcast discovery app in July 2022, also appears to have come to nothing. The website is now owned by a company in Ukraine. An Audacy spokesperson didn't return our request for more detail about Moonbeam.
Now, we recently announced something new for iTunes and iPod, and it's called podcasting.
Celebrating the 20th anniversary of podcasts being available in iTunes, Apple Podcasts released a list of 20 years, 20 podcasts we love, and posted a thank you to creators. There's a statement from Ben Cave, the global head of podcasts at Apple in Podnews today. Apple says that those shows have made a lasting impact on listeners and the podcast industry.
Separately, the Essential Listening Poll is compiling a list from audio creators, writers, and scholars, which will be unveiled in August at Podcast Movement. Steve Jobs demoed podcasting at the D3 conference in 2005 by playing the latest episode of Adam Curry's Daily Source Code. It didn't quite go to plan. We link to a YouTube video of that today.
We've also restored the co-inventor of podcasting, Dave Winer's Morning Coffee Notes, which he credits for democratizing the podcast medium, fearing that other early shows sounded too polished. The first episode in our restored feed is from March 2005. And as an aside, Apple's new list is hosted on the learn.applepodcasts.apple domain. That's the first time we've ever seen them use that domain, and there's no homepage there quite yet.
Elsewhere, Podcast One has launched a crypto podcast network. The press release talks about blockchain, Web3 audio and video content, and AI-hosted content as well. A free-to-access podcast studio in Cape Town, AMPD Studios, has achieved six years of success, but is threatened with closure after its funding suddenly fell through without warning. Now it's only got two months left, says John Savage.
We're going to be forced to close down very, very shortly if we can't actually just get through the next few months.
Well, you can donate to a Backer Buddy campaign to help save it, or learn more with an interview with John Savage in our sister publication of the podcast Business Journal today, or you'll find that interview in this week's Podnews Weekly Review.
Audio is bigger than video in New Zealand, says the Infinite Dial from Edison Research, and it marks the fourth country where the study has found that podcasts have hit the mainstream, with 55% of New Zealanders consuming a podcast in the last month. Aotearoa also beats the US in radio listening. Ausha has achieved compliance with IAB Podcast Measurement Guidelines version 2.2.
The IAB requires companies to recertify annually to remain in the list, but outside of that time frame, but still listed by the IAB as compliant, are Podigee, who haven't recertified for two years, Libsyn, Audion, Podtrac, and Mediastream. Another day, another podcast app, Tone, is being developed for how I think podcasts should be experienced, or at least how the top 1% of podcasts should be experienced, according to the developer.
And in podcast news, here's The Scoop, is a new evening podcast from NBC News, which launched earlier this week. Today, the award-winning Five Random Questions podcast celebrates its one-year anniversary, and in a special bonus episode, you'll hear host Danny Brown sharing a thank-you message, as well as some milestones along the way.
And what began as a sanctuary for healing became the epicentre of a double tragedy, and a cautionary tale that goes straight to the heart of the modern wellness industry. A new podcast today called The Lodge from RNZ is new. It reopens the file on a mysterious cult that operated from a 1960s hunting lodge in New Zealand. Chinese guru Aiping Wang promised her followers supernatural powers, the ability to fly, to see the future, and to heal disease.
And it spawned a global empire of energy healing clinics and had a massive, sometimes traumatic, impact on the lives of followers. And this podcast is sponsored by Podscribe. They've just launched their June 2025 industry rankings, and you can see the top podcasts, the top publishers, and the top advertisers in this top ranker. You can explore the full rankings to spot the leaders and biggest movers. There's a link in the show notes to read it.
And that's the latest from our newsletter. To read all the stories and subscribe for free, we're at podnews.net.