From our daily newsletter, the latest from podnews.net, with Understood from CBC. We start with an exclusive today. A company in Italy is sending invoices for more than $7,300 to multiple podcast directories and apps for listing six Italian podcasts. In a special report today, Podnews examines what Licensync is doing and suggests it's another reason why podcasting could benefit from a trade association to help protect our industry.
You can read the article in full in our show notes and our newsletter at podnews.net. A BBC World Service investigation has suggested that one of the world's biggest podcasts, Diary of a CEO with Stephen Bartlett, has been accused of spreading fringe theories and harmful health information, including that cancer can be treated by following a keto diet rather than proven treatments and that gluten intake causes autism.
If you were a cancer patient who took some of this advice and maybe changed your dietary patterns when you were undergoing treatment, you could get very, very sick and have a much worse health outcome than if you followed recommended advice from your oncologist.
They're giving something that feels like it's tangible, it's not going to hurt, but they're way overstretching what the potential value of it is and the worrisome thing to me is that it sends people away from evidence-based medicine.
You can watch the investigation in full from a link in our show notes and our newsletter at podnews.net. The company that makes the show, Flight Studio, suggests it's merely freedom of expression. Podcasthon is less than 100 days away in March next year. Doug Downs shares a little more about what the charity event is about and how your podcast can take part in an article we link to today. CoHost has published 28 expert podcast predictions for 2025.
The rise of video, always-on podcasts and narrative formats are all highlighted. Podcasting Made Simple Live is a virtual event taking place on January 9th. It's focused on helping podcasts, guests and hosts improve their craft. Tickets are $97 but we've got a secret link today for free access from Podnews. You can find that in our show notes and our newsletter at podnews.net.
Hosting service PodToo has announced a partnership with Kobo, enabling PodToo's audiobook publishers to offer their audiobooks directly to Kobo Books. The company has also launched Secure RSS, a method of securely selling audiobooks through RSS feeds. On LinkedIn, Jay Clouse publishes an impressive graph showing growth of a show on YouTube. He also links to advice and a $199 course to learn how to do the same. It's a Monday, so time for some tech stuff.
Is there a technically simple way to show comments for podcast episodes? In a podcast app, the podcast's Social Interact tag should allow comments for podcast episodes across a wide variety of apps, but it's never achieved the kind of take-up that's been desired. Is there a simpler way to achieve this with entirely standards-compliant RSS? Our editor has a new idea to link to today.
Worth taking a look at PodToo's release about Secure RSS, the technology is described as a new way to discover content securely via RSS while protecting the content owners, and the Podcasting 2.0 podcast was the last for the year, among other things it talks about a PWA being confusing for Americans, who are used to the word "progressive" being used to describe political parties.
And in podcast news from CBC, Understood is an anthology podcast that takes you out of the daily news cycle and inside the events, people and cultural moments you want to know more about, from crypto, to the Prime Minister of India, to Celine Dion, and CBC is currently accepting pitches for the show, you'll find a link in our show notes. A new podcast aimed at demystifying healthcare, Wealth of Health, has been launched.
The podcast aims to address common health concerns, provide accurate information on prevention and treatment options, and challenge misinformation. And the Podnews Weekly Review this week talked with Shira Atkins of Wonder Media Network about their acquisition by Acast, Rob Greenlee about the Podcast Hall of Fame, and Daniel J Lewis about Podgagement. And this podcast is sponsored by CBC.
From CBC, Understood goes deep on the current events, people and cultural moments shaping society. The seasons span four episodes hosted by journalists with an existing expertise on the story and CBC is now accepting pitches for seasons of the show. You can find 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.