The latest from podnews.net with Central Talent Booking. Your podcast deserves the best guests. We start with an exclusive today. On Air Fest has revealed its 2025 schedule, which it calls the most expansive line-up yet. The event is between February the 19th and 21st in and around Brooklyn in New York, and it'll include more than 80 performances, podcast tapings, panel conversations and workshops.
Among the third wave of featured talent announced today is Anderson Cooper, Jameel Hill and Anna Martin. There's also an invite-only podcast business summit with Bloomberg's Ashley Carman. It'll be the event's eighth year. Podcast monetization company Audioboom published a 2024 trading update. In 2024, the company beat analyst forecasts to show an EBITDA profit of $3.4 million. Total revenue for the year was up by 13%, to $73.4 million.
The company signed new content partnerships and renewed existing ones, but also managed to reduce the minimum guarantee obligations by more than $3 million. The company's CEO, Stuart Last, will join us in the Podnews Weekly Review on Friday. For the first time, the Australian Podcast Ranker has a clear uncontested number one. ARN's iHeart is number one for podcasting in podcast publishers and in sales representation.
It comes as the BBC, represented by ARN's iHeart, joins the Australian podcast ranker for the first time. The BBC is the 10th biggest participating publisher with 3.3 million downloads, and that ranker is calculated using monthly listeners. If you were to calculate it using monthly downloads, the number one publisher remains the ABC, whose podcasts are commercial-free in the country. Radio and podcast directory service TuneIn has apparently made another 25 layoffs this week.
Earlier this month, TuneIn erroneously removed a number of radio stations in the UK. And as Podnews covered in December, the company hasn't accepted new podcasts for almost 12 months, after multiple rounds of layoffs. Along with the TuneIn app, companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, and many auto manufacturers rely on TuneIn's directory. And is video podcasting just making podcasting even harder for women?
Neal Veglio returns to our story from January the 1st about the gender bias in video podcasting. And thank you to Joe Tannorella of podengine.ai for joining as our latest personal supporter. Podnews personal supporters are paying for your access, ensuring that everyone can get the latest news about our industry. You can join Joe by becoming a supporter at podnews.net slash Patreon. In People News, Kate Lindsay has been announced as a new host for Slate's ICYMI.
The author of the embedded newsletter, she joins co-host Candice Lim. And in podcast news, all 50 states of the USA produce wine, and Wine Across America, which launches today, is dedicated to educating wine lovers about the amazing wines being produced across the country. Featuring engaging interviews with winery owners, winemakers, and wine industry experts. It's hosted by Alan Craft and Sandra Gibord of BIN113. And the first two states are Virginia and Maryland.
Bad news though, we've checked, The Boston Globe's love letters is back for a new season. This season focuses on the possibility of change. Host and long-time Globe advice columnist Meredith Goldstein will attempt to answer the complicated questions, Can people really change? And if so, how? And the Louis Theroux podcast returned for a new season yesterday. Louis kicks off Series 4 with a wide-ranging conversation with screen legend Willem Dafoe.
Other upcoming guests that I've heard of include Jamie Oliver and that bloke from Hot Ones, you know, Sean Evans, the guy normally asking the spicy questions himself. And this podcast is sponsored by Central Talent Booking. Your podcast deserves the best guests. And Central Talent Booking helps you secure top-tier guests to boost your podcast's reach and entertainment. You can find out how all that works. There's a link in the show notes. And that's the latest from our newsletter.
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