Dear Readers,

The winners of the annual Discover Pods Awards have been announced! Alas, the Inside Podcasting podcast did not win "best new podcast" of the year, but who can complain about being beaten by the great Dolly Parton? Congratulations to all the winners!

Skye

1. This week Spotify announced deals with a number of high profile celebrities and creators including Jordan Peele (Get Out), Paul Feig (Bridesmaids), Mark Wahlberg (underwear model) and YouTube star Lele Pons. An article in The Hollywood Reporter also reveals that the company is constructing a 154,000 square-foot Los Angeles-based podcast "campus," offering 17 studios, green rooms, live event space and a mixing suite. In related news, the company has also launched Your Daily Podcasts, in which episodes of varied genres are thrown together, a concept that has garnered mixed reviews. — THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

2. Yesterday, I stumbled across the unofficial news that Apple has hired Emily Ochsenschlager, National Geographic's current director of podcasts and an ex-reporter/producer for NPR. According to a source, the move is "the first of many [content hires] for them in the coming weeks." This development appears to support a story Bloomberg published last summer, which claimed that Apple "plans to bankroll original podcasts to fend off rivals." 

3. Throwback Thursday: For Colored Nerds, “Get Out,” 1 hr, 3 min

Before there was The Nod, Gimlet Media’s podcast about Black culture, there was For Colored Nerds, a show also hosted by the extremely engaging duo Eric Eddings and Brittany Luse (if you haven’t heard of either, it may be time to give your feed a refresh). For Colored Nerds explores various pop-culturey topics from movies and music to the impact of Obama’s eight-year presidency. In this episode, the pair dig into Jordan Peele’s excellent 2017 film Get Out. The hosts examine how the movie, billed by many as a horror version of 1967's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, is also a searing indictment of liberal white racism and white feminism in modern-day America. Eddings and Luse leave no stone unturned, diving into everything from how Get Out reflects the legacy of slavery to why cinematic point-of-view matters. It's riveting. 

Note: this episode is chock-full of spoilers.

4. Podcasters: ICYMI take note of these recent guidelines from Apple Podcasts regarding submitting your show for approval during the upcoming holiday season:

If you plan to release new shows on Apple Podcasts in November or December, be aware of the following periods of delayed submission activity:
November 22 (that's tomorrow) to December 2
December 23 to January 2
Shows submitted during these windows may not be available within our regular timeframe of five business days. Plan accordingly and submit any new shows with this in mind.

Learn more about this notification (including new features regarding timing your launch and guest photo specifications) in this bonus episode of the She Podcasts podcast.

5. Last week The Daily invited a third-grader on the show, to ask "Barbarb" questions about the impeachment hearings. I've heard wildly varied reactions to this one, from "it may be of The Daily's best episode of the year" to "what a waste of my time." Evidently, the show may be featuring kids with increasing frequency in the months ahead. What do you think of this trend? 

6. The London Library has launched a new podcast series, which features authors, cultural icons and other notable figures discussing the books that influenced and shaped their lives. In its inaugural episode, social historian and author Hallie Rubenhold dives into five texts including Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder and Les Miserables by Victor Hugo; in December novelist Harriet Evans discusses a number of selections including The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis, and Aged 13 ¾ by Sue Townsend. 

7. The Washington Post's Post Reports has launched a Facebook group, in which listeners are encouraged to "talk about stories featured on the show, share reflections or questions about our coverage, and talk about other things happening in the news." The group's feed also features behind-the-scenes pics (see below), TikToks and more.

8. A new podcast aims to help women answer the questions they "secretly" type into Google about marijuana use. Hosted by cannabis company founder April Pride, How to do the Pot features episodes about CBD usage, whether it's safe to use while pregnant and if the drug can be used to alleviate menstrual pain.  “When I started my first company that designed discerning products for cannabis, I underestimated the need for education. While women appreciated my products, many were not confident in their knowledge about how to buy cannabis and how it could serve them,” says Pride.

9. RAIN News says Edison Research's fee-based Podcast Consumer Quarterly Tracking Report will leverage a "universal measure of reach" to uncover "audience information at the publisher/network level.” Writer Brad Hill posits that the new product could be Edison's answer to Podtrac's monthly ranking, which exclusively reports on companies that subscribe to its platform. Edison's initial findings have been released; the second quarterly report arrives in January 2020. 

10. The New York Times is looking for an audio producer to develop story ideas for shows including The Daily and a managing producer to "build a new team" for the paper's opinion audio projects. 

This newsletter was written and curated by podcast junkie and recovered publicist, Skye Pillsbury. Over the years, Skye has crafted digital media strategies for brands like Yahoo! and Microsoft and worked regularly with media outlets such as the New York Times, Rolling Stone and NPR. Skye was famous for 49 minutes when she and her son were featured in an episode of Gimlet Media’s Heavyweight podcast. Follow her on Twitter @SkyePillsbury.

Editor: Kim Lyons (Pittsburgh-based journalist and managing editor at Inside).

We're at work on Season 2 of the Inside Podcasting podcast and hope to have more to share soon. In the meantime, you can catch up on the first season which included interviews with:

Ian Chillag, the creator of Everything is Alive 

Jessi Hempel, who hosts Linked In’s podcast Hello Monday

Martine Powers, who hosts Post Reports from the Washington Post 

Leon Neyfakh, the co-creator of Slow Burn, who is now the host of Fiasco 

Madeleine Baran, the investigative reporter behind In the Dark

and Inside CEO Jason Calacanis, who hosts This Week in Startups

You can find the show wherever you get your podcasts. Let us know what you think!