PodMov Daily: Thursday, September 17

Episode 287: Your Thursday Podthoughts

Amazon Music Rolls Out Podcasts, Including Exclusive Originals

Amazon Music has launched its podcasts platform. According to Ashley Carman of The Verge, yesterday’s update “brings more than 70,000 shows to the platform, including some major titles, like Serial and Pod Save America, as well as new exclusive deals like a show with DJ Khaled called The First One.”

The move positions Amazon as a real competitor of Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Carman finds the update “especially intriguing given that Audible recently announced its newest and cheapest subscription plan.” The plan includes access to exclusive podcasts, but they don’t appear to be available through Amazon Music.

Todd Spangler of Variety reports that podcasts are available free on all tiers of Amazon Music “and have first launched for customers in the U.S., U.K., Germany and Japan.” Amazon confirms that podcasts stream directly from a creator’s hosting provider, leaving metrics and dynamic ad insertion unaffected.

A Teen Audio Journalist's Approach to Diverse Storytelling

Lila Shroff has spent two years working at RadioActive Youth Media, an award-winning youth radio journalism program at KUOW (Seattle’s NPR station). The teen journalist explains that while diversity is a common goal when building teams and audio content, “well-intentioned people often fall into the same traps.”

When planning topics or episodes, it's best to pitch with personal stake. “Lean into the idea of telling stories that only you can tell,” Shroff suggests. Your identity will lead you to stories you can tell better than anyone, but also “stories you’d love to tell that are better told by other people.” How does your perspective contribute?

“The nuances that come from being able to tell a story as an insider are exactly what makes them stand out,” Shroff observes. Take the example of translation. Multilingual storytellers should look beyond an English-only audience: “The fear of shutting out one community is also an opportunity to speak to a new one.”

70 Million: The Peabody-Nominated Podcast Returns

The critically-acclaimed 70 Million podcast has begun its third season. A Lantigua Williams & Co. original, it examines American criminal justice reform by reporting on the role of jails. 

70 Million focuses on what communities directly impacted by the bail system, racialized policing, and the school-to-prison pipeline are doing. This season, reporters investigate the impact of COVID-19 on those in custody, Native American approaches to punishment and rehabilitation, and lessons from Hep-C containment behind bars, among other topics.

As an open-source podcast, 70 Million empowers listeners to engage with annotated transcripts, toolkits, and other resources. Listen and learn. Subscribe to 70 Million wherever you get your podcasts.

Here's what else is going on:

• Crystal clear: Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has defended keeping transphobic content from Joe Rogan on the platform, Vice reports. “The fact that we aren't changing our position doesn't mean we aren't listening,” Ek said. “It just means we made a different judgment call.”

• Leader board: Apple Podcasts has hired RadioPublic co-founder and CEO Jake Shapiro as head of creator partnerships, writes Julian Wyllie. Shapiro is a heavy hitter: He co-founded and served as CEO of PRX in 2002, and is also the co-founder and former CEO of Podfund.

• Double scoop: The Podcast Host has published a guide to automation for podcasters. In Part 1 and Part 2, podcaster and business systems strategist Yann Ilunga digs into tools and topics like workflow dissection, the role systems play, and different types of automation.

• Believe me: Guy Raz, the host of NPR’s How I Built This, says that storytelling is a “growth hack that enables consumers to connect to your brand in a deeper, more personal way.” Raz illustrates the point to Carmine Gallo of Forbes, citing startups Allbirds and Bumble.