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News, Roundups, and Announcements

• How do you launch a new audio drama podcast? Podrama Cast Network hosted the first-ever audio drama listening party in the Middle East. It was held at Zawya Cinema in downtown Cairo, Egypt.
• Podnews reports, "Chartable has sent a further email about its closure - warning [SmartFeed] users to remove the Chartable analytics prefix by Dec 12. When the company closes, it’ll render your podcast entirely unplayable if you’re still using the Chartable prefix - or, in Spotify-speak, “you could risk episode playback issues." Talk about a scorched-earth campaign.
• Roundup: AJ Churchill shares The Sound of Collapse: 10 Fiction Podcasts Set in Dystopian Worlds and Top 10 Chilling Horror Fiction Podcasts You’ve Never Heard Of But Won’t Easily Forget, for Apollo.
• ​Apple's new Top Series chart for iOS 18 may aid podcast discovery. Check the best practices at the end to make sure your show fits. In other Apple news, "transcripts are available with iOS 17.4 or later for podcasts in English, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish with back catalog episodes being added over time [and] can be accessed in over 170 countries and regions."
• Congratulations to the Signal Awards Listener's Choice nominees, including Alpha 8, Bingo After Dark, Sorry About the Murder, and Who's The Ass? Click Discover and search the categories (nope, they don't make it easy) to find your favorite shows. Voting is open now.
• Crowdfunding: Baked Off! A group of would-be home-bakers based in England and Scotland meet up for a regular online baking class under the tutelage of a retired Australian chef in Brisbane, Australia.​​

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Creator Resources

• Tom Crowley has new dates available for his Happier Scriptwriting course, with him, Tom Crowley.
• Radio Boot Camp is hosting a Pro Tools for Beginners seminar.
• ​Chartable is closing. What should I use instead? by Dan Misener for Bumper
• Don't try to fit your audio-only podcast into a video vending machine size. 19.2 Ounces of Podcasting Wisdom, by Tom Webster for Sounds Profitable
• Austin Kleon's got a little something for you about getting in and out of trouble.
• ​Purpose-Driven Podcasting: What Is Your “Why”? Come for the crumbling Gilded Age mansion, and stay for the explanation of how motivation works.
• Tickets are still available for The Audio Drama Hub Podfest 2024.

Opportunities

• Casting Call: Forgive Me! Season 4 Rogue Dialogue seeks 13 new VA's to fill out their greater ensemble. Deadline is October 31.
• Casting Call: MAD Company Theatre seeks performers in Brooklyn, NY, for A Christmas Carol: Radio Play.
• Casting Call: The Saints, Margaret of Scotland​
• Casting Call: Levian. Deadline: October 15.
• Casting Call: Starting October 15, Escape Artists will accept auditions for narrators.
• Casting Call: Suicide in Santa Fe. Deadline: 1 November.
• ​LoveNotes! is looking for true stories of romantic love. Diverse voices are encouraged to submit. They want storytellers to perform live, but at the end of the description are instructions for people who have a 1K or less story, can't or don't want to perform, and want to be considered for the podcast. Deadline: 15 November.

Milestones & Debuts

• ​Dirt After more than a year hiatus, Dirt published a new episode on Oct 3. It will be the first of 11 new episodes, released more or less monthly, that will wrap up the entire series.
• ​Edmonton Script Salon is a monthly new play reading series, over 10 years old, that occasionally records work for podcasts.
• ​The White Vault: Goshawk Season 7 launches on October 15. One way or another, they're gonna getcha.
• ​‘IT HAPPENED HERE 2024’ — an audio documentary from the future. Inspired by Sinclair Lewis’ dystopian novel, “It Can’t Happen Here" offers a glimpse of what could happen after the 2024 election if fascism creeps into the USA. Told through the voices of a fragmenting American family, we experience a country that still has Netflix and two-day free delivery, and the only thing lost is freedom. The first two episodes are available on WNYC’s “On the Media” podcast feed or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes will appear through October 30th.
• Speaking of bloodsuckers, the teaser trailer for Dracula: The Danse Macabre is out now.

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