The latest from our daily newsletter at podnews.net with CoHost. We start with an exclusive for you today. There's a new comedy podcast network in town. The launch of the WITZ podcast network has been announced by entertainment studio Cineverse and comedy club brand The Stand. Cineverse is currently well known for horror, true crime and entertainment. Comedy is the number one most popular podcast category in the US.
Speaking of which, the Golden Lobes Awards, celebrating the funniest podcasts, people and moments in the audio industry, are closing shortly, even till the end of March the 15th. Entries are just £25 or $32 to you. Fourth Wall, a membership and e-commerce platform for creators integrated with Spotify recently and has shared a chart of the number of paid subscribers for one podcast before and after enabling the feature. We link to that today and also link
to a show with it enabled. There's an early access button which links your Spotify account to your Fourth Wall membership in a browser. Other platforms supported by Spotify Open Access include Memberful, Supporting Cast, Substack and Patreon. Spotify doesn't take a cut. Yesterday's suggestion that Spotify's partner program was losing some publishers' money was
refuted by Spotify. They told us, While we can't comment on specific creators or shows, creators who join the Spotify partner program late in the month, who have irregular posting schedules or experience broader declines in audience engagement, may see lower initial earnings and less accurate month-to-month comparisons. Overall, though it's still early, the program has proven valuable for the vast majority of enrolled shows.
Well, we've asked for some clarity on that statement. Meanwhile, Amanda McLaughlin, who posted her experiences on LinkedIn, reiterated to us, Spotify is asking creators to try an unproven program with undisclosed revenue splits. Our experience is, my client opted into video on Spotify and lost a pretty significant chunk of money during their first month in the program. Because of that, we made the best decision for us with the data we received and opted out. We suspect that'll run
and run. We were made. We were made. By Wondercraft. Google has removed the ability to ask your phone to play podcasts, news and radio stations, with its release of Gemini to replace Google Assistant. Google Play, the latest news, had been responsible for significant download numbers for some podcasts. But it no longer works on phones using Gemini. The company doesn't appear to have communicated that
to its content partners. Ad-skipping podcast app Auddia released its annual financial report. The company made a loss of $8.7 million in the year, while failing to earn a single dollar in revenue. The CEO, though, received a 17% pay rise. The company's auditor says it has substantial doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern. Probably unrelated, Audia will share how the company views the podcast industry's financial
financial landscape in a keynote at South by Southwest. We'll be taking notes. And if you're playing along, the mystery of 20 times as many downloads for our podcasts, but only from two countries, appears to show that those downloads are automated in some way. If you're listening to this and you're in Indonesia or Malaysia, please get in touch.
Updates at podnews.net. And tell us how. And thank you to Brett Johnson of Circle 270 Media for becoming our latest personal supporter, or perhaps that's Circle 270. Who knows? Anyway, he's Ohio's first full-time podcast consultant and one of our supporters that pays for Pod News so that everyone can read it for free. You can become a supporter at podnews.net
slash Patreon. And thank you. In People News, Carrie Legner has joined Audio Hook's sales team, and Rumble is hiring for an audio podcast manager and monetization strategist to oversee and grow our audio podcast portfolio. And in podcast news, in German, Antritt, De Farad podcast is 10 years old today. It's grown to be
one of the most popular podcasts in the cycling world. The show, part of Detector FM, will be focusing on bicycle media all this month, including a bicycle podcast icon from the USA. In Calm History this month, Harris reveals if Florence Nightingale was truly an angelic nurse, or if it was all a false legend. Wild Sounds is New Zealand podcast publisher RNZ's first dedicated super feed,
and will be home to RNZ's best science and nature series. Voice of the Sea Ice is the first off the block, talking to New Zealand researchers investigating the future of Antarctica. And HeadGum launches Wayne Brady's What If with Jonathan Mangum today. The actor, producer, singer, dancer, songwriter, author, and television personality Wayne Brady, and fellow improviser Jonathan Mangum interview special guests about their life and career, creating what-if scenarios along the way.
And this podcast is sponsored by Co-host. If you're looking for better podcast analytics, Co-host gives you insight into download sources, audience demographics, episode consumption, and more. You can sign up for a free trial of Co-host today. You'll find 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.