From Dublin, the latest from our daily newsletter at podnews.net with CoHost.
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
But what about inside the UK? Well, after criticism from the UK podcast industry, the BBC has said it won't press ahead with ads in podcasts in the UK, saying it's decided to rule out placing adverts around BBC licence fee funded programmes on third party podcast platforms in the UK. The announcement is expected to be confirmed in the BBC annual plan next week. Independent podcasters had called the idea disastrous. The BBC will take some advertising in UK podcasts, though.
Podnews reported last week on a new BBC podcast, which will contain ads inside the UK, but is not produced by the public service. The BBC is funded by advertising outside the UK. Frequency Ads has launched a new premium publisher network for host-read ads. As we can reveal as an exclusive today, partnering with DAX US, the service aims to make host-read ads as easy to buy as programmatic ads.
Popular podcast app Pocket Casts is rolling out smart folders next week, which automatically groups shows together. You'll see them in beta versions of the app now. Why did we call it a popular podcast app? Well, you can find out quite how popular Pocket Casts is. Next week, the Podnews report card is on April 2nd at 9 on the keynote stage at Evolutions. In Portugal, Podscope is a measurement service of podcasts in the country.
It was unveiled on March 18th and has published a ranker for both January and February. The ranker measures four or five complete weeks rather than calendar months. The number one podcast is extremely unpleasant, literally. That's the name of the show in Portuguese, and it's produced by a commercial radio broadcaster. Well, Podscope calculates downloads via server logs using rules from an outdated version of the IAB podcast guidelines.
It measures participating publishers only, hosted on either Triton Digital's Omny Studio or Bauer Media's Podplay. The public broadcaster RTP is one of the publishers that is not taking part. Magellan AI has published February's top podcast advertisers. Of the top 15 companies, only four increased their spend. February is a shorter month, though, which may be part of the reason.
Simplecast and Red Circle announced a partnership earlier in the year for optimised ad insertion, claiming 21% improved ad delivery over traditional vast integrations. It means podcasters hosting with Simplecast Professional can now find advertisers through Red Circle without switching hosting platforms. You can join the Open Wrap waitlist. There's a link in our show notes and our newsletter at podnews.net. Should podcasts go live?
Dave Jones explains the benefits of live podcasting and technical ways to achieve it in a blog that we link to today. Libsyn has signed an advertising and hosting partnership for the 10% Happier with Dan Harris podcast. The show was with Wondery. Four big NBA players have been signed by sports podcast network Blue Wire. A US advertising self-regulator has warned about a failure of some social media influencers to properly disclose the commercial relationship with their advertisers.
The same FTC rules apply in podcasting as well. The size of the global ad market has been downgraded by $20 billion by WARC after trade tariffs and further uncertainty. The media data company had suggested that audio would grow by 2.1% but now suggests that audio advertising might only grow by 0.4%. And are you in Indonesia or Malaysia? Do you have an Android phone with an account that's registered in that country?
We'd like to ask you a question about what you see in one of the Google apps to help us with a story. If you are, please let us know. We're editor at podnews.net. And in podcast news, based on real world events, Signal Lost is a brand new espionage thriller podcast released today by Calaroga Shark Media. It follows the catastrophic consequences when highly classified military operations are compromised through a commercial messaging app. Sounds familiar.
If you're planning your next vacation before you budget, learn how to get the most out of your travel dollars with NerdWallet's Smart Travel. It's new from Airwave today and breaks down everything from frequent flyer points to Airbnb to help you upgrade your getaways. We thank Airwave for their support this month. Now, perhaps you're flying to Chicago over the weekend and you want to find some new podcasts to listen to on the flight. Well, step forward to a podcast called New Podcasts.
It's our feed of all of the newest and most interesting shows out there from the pages of podnews. If you've got a podcast to tell us about, head over to newpodcasts.net and let us know. And this podcast is sponsored by Co-host. If you want more listener insights without switching hosting providers, you can explore Co-host's prefix with in-depth podcast analytics and tracking links starting at just $15 a month. You can sign up today for a free trial. There's a link in the show notes.
And that's the latest from our newsletter. To read all the stories and subscribe for free, we're at podnews.net.