From Chicago, the latest from our daily newsletter at podnews.net with Podgellan AI. The winners of the 2025 Ambies were announced in Chicago, the fifth annual Awards for Excellence in Audio, in a ceremony just ahead of Podcast Movement Evolutions.
Welcome to the Ambies, these are the nominees.
Well, these are the winners, hysterical winning podcast of the year. Ira Glass, honoured with the esteemed Governor's Award, and Sam Sanders received the Impact Award. We're linking to all the winners today from a link you'll find in our show notes and our newsletter at podnews.net. Elsewhere, in a bold move, Magellan AI has announced a rebrand to Podgellan AI. The podcast advertising intelligence platform tells Podnews that the change reflects a deep commitment to the podcast space.
iOS 18.4 is now available as an update for iPhone and iPad. Among many other improvements, the update offers two new home screen widgets for Apple Podcasts, a followed show widget to directly place your favourite show's latest episode on your home screen, and a library widget to get your most used sections, like latest episodes or stations. Submissions are now open for the CrimeCon's 2025 Clue Awards.
The awards recognising excellence in responsible true crime storytelling include two podcast categories, Outstanding Episodic Series and Outstanding Docu-Series. In Spanish, the 100th edition of the AudioGen 3x3 newsletter has been published. The edition features three voices in the global spoken audio industry, Daniel Alarcón, who's co-founder of Radio Ambulante, Lucas Fridman from Argentina's Olga, and Podnews' editor, James Cridland.
(That's me!) Voices, a voiceover marketplace, has released a report saying that more than half of ad agencies have used an AI voice at some point in the creative process. However, the company suggests that they're used for initial drafts, not final work. And in July 2023, podcast host Podbean was running deceptive Google ads that looked as if they were the websites of their competitors.
Sadly, Podbean is displaying a poor grasp of ethical behaviour again, with ads seen yesterday that are passing off as links to Red Circle, Transistor and Captivate. These ads are against Google ad policy and maybe against US law. And we've again contacted Podbean and again, they haven't responded. In People News, Leah Reis-Dennis has been promoted to head of podcasts at Audacy. She's been with the company since 2022.
And Audacy is reported to be rolling out new podcast advertising tools based on Podcorn. And in podcast news, Mel Robbins, the host of the Mel Robbins podcast, is profiled in the Wall Street Journal. The self-help podcast is frequently the number one podcast in the US. Unpacking Peanuts begins the final season of the Great Peanuts reread.
Today, the show has been reading all 17,987 strips of Charles Schultz's masterpiece and taking a deep dive into his character's story and cartooning genius. And public relations podcast Stories and Strategies is committing itself to 75% female guests, reflecting the make-up at junior and mid-levels of the PR industry. Season four starts today with a new co-host who joins Doug Downs. Her name is Farzana Baduel.
And the new season will explore PR through a truly global lens, tackling industry challenges, leadership insights and the evolving media landscape. And this podcast is sponsored by Podgellan AI. Magellan AI is now Podgellan AI because every good podcast company starts with the word pod. Podcast ad measurement, attribution and competitive insights. Now with added pod. Learn more about Podgellan AI. 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.