The hit podcast that's not all that it seems. The latest from podnews.net with Soundstack, earning more programmatic revenue. This podcast, Today in El Pais, has been claiming impressively high download figures. Yet today, Podnews can reveal that many of the downloads were
never heard. The 14 megabyte podcast was observed automatically downloading without user intervention in a browser using an iPhone user agent just by visiting the elpais.com homepage, thus artificially growing the download numbers from every mobile visitor to the website. El Pais got over 118 million visits in September, according to SimilarWeb, making it the largest Spanish
newspaper online. It's owned by Prisa. The podcast is apparently the 12th biggest show by downloads on Triton's Latin American podcast ranker and 45th in Podtrack's estimated Spanish podcast ranker. The show hosted by Triton Digital also appears to contain a spot for programmatic advertising. We notified the newspaper of this behavior with a method to reproduce it and asked for a
statement. The auto download behavior has now quietly ceased. And if you think you've seen this before, iHeart was auto downloading podcasts on its radio station websites in 2018. Acast has released its podcast "Pulse Report" working with Edison Research. 80% of podcast listeners tune into niche podcasts, with 63% saying they are less likely to skip ads on those shows. 92% say they listen to podcasts because they cover topics more in-depth than other
media. The data is available in full in a link that we share in our show notes in our newsletter at podnews.net. The winners of the Signal Awards were announced. 170,000 votes were cast for the Listeners Choice Award winners. Joe Rogan has uploaded the full Trump interview to Elon Musk's X, claiming that there is an issue with searching for this episode on YouTube. He had blamed a Spotify glitch for the video initially being unwatchable on YouTube.
Rogan's next guest will be JD Vance. Negotiations continue with the Harris campaign. AdsWiz announced a partnership with Number 8 to offer contextually targeted ads without using listener IP addresses. The tool "uses anonymized publisher data and contextual information from RSS feeds." Supporting Cast is now helping monetize a number of podcast creators in New Zealand. Newsroom, Stuff, The Gilt Podcast and Rovers Not For Radio, TheTalkShow.ai lets you be
interviewed by an AI interviewer about a subject of your choice. It might be a good place to practice being a great podcast guest perhaps. Bandrew Scott highlights the problem with podcast conferences and Pocket Casts has added a listening history feature so you can remember where you heard that great joke. You can find it in your profile. In tips and tricks today, Apple Podcasts offers
some great opportunities for artwork but only if you know about them all. Chris Stone has produced a simple guide to Apple Podcasts artwork which is well worth a read. It's part of his weekly newsletter. And in Podcast News, Born To Love with Ellie Kemper and Scott Eckert is now part of the Lemonada Media lineup. Crawl Before You Ball is new from Buffy Purcell dedicated to empowering couples to navigate the often complex intersection of finances and
relationships. Cool Room Confessional with Melissa Long is new from Square and Amex, a new podcast for restaurants, cafes and pub owners. After Word's returns for season 5 today by Hearst Publishers, the show features conversations between authors and journalists about their illuminating books. And The Burden Avenger is a new season of The Burden telling the story of Miriam Lewin who overcame her own past as a victim of torture in Buenos Aires to not only
change her future but also the future of her country. It's a production of Orbit Media, Sonoro Media and Signal Company number one. This podcast is sponsored by Soundstack. So you've got a portfolio of podcasts and you're looking for more opportunities for them in 2025. Well how about earning more programmatic revenue? It's simple with Soundstack. You can find out more about Soundstack in the link in
our show notes. And that's the latest from our newsletter. To read all the stories and subscribe, we're at podnews.net.