Kate Langbroek’s friend Barb on her new podcast
The wonderful Barb made a triumphant return to the Hit Network drive show this week. She seems to have found a potential new scammer. For overs six months now Barb has looked for love online, luring scammers into a long relationship that ends before she hands over any of her wealth.
PodcastOne has packaged up the various online “relationships” into a compelling series of episodes branded Scamming The Scammer.
“She is always out there looking for love,” her friend Kate Langbroek told Mediaweek.
Working with Langbroek on the latest Barb instalment from her new Italian base has been producer Sasha French and drive show tech Andrea. Another SCA tech visited Italy last November to look for a suitable space for Kate to broadcast from when she and her family arrived for their Italian adventure.
[See other Kate Langbroek interview published on Mediaweek today.]
Barb said the Hit Network makes sure she never touches a button on the broadcast equipment.
The Hit Network has briefed a local in Bologna about the tech setup, but Barb explained most of the recording can be handled from the Melbourne Hit Network studios.
Langbroek added that in the past much of the Hughesy & Kate show is recorded on Skype, particularly when Hughesy is travelling for his comedy commitments, and they are old hands at it.
Barb and her co-conspirators have a great strike rate when it comes to hooking an online love scammer. When asked if they have ever had to dump a potential fraudster because he smelled something amiss, Langbroek said: “Never. None of them have ever cottoned on. They are so audacious. Greed is blind. Once they get a whiff that Barb is such a willing participant in their scams they go right along with it.”
The scammer on the hook this week is Fred who sounds almost too good to be true. Without wanting to reveal too much, Barb admitted she and Fred make the ultimate commitment to each other!
As to whether Kate ever feels any sorrow for the fraudsters after they are exposed on air, she explained: “Sometimes I feel a bit sorry for them. But as Hughesy always says to me. ‘When they are busy on the line with me, they are not scamming someone else.’
“You always have to remember how cruel these men are and what their end game is. They try to make people fall in love with them so they can commit a crime on a massive scale.”
Listen to Scamming The Scammer here.
—
Spotify growing its podcast offering with acquisitions
Spotify is growing its already significant podcast offering through acquisition. Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek explains his latest moves:
More than 10 years ago we founded Spotify to give consumers something they couldn’t get – music any time, anywhere, and at the right price.
Along the way, we broke the grip piracy had on our industry and restored the growth of global music through paid on-demand streaming. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished, but what I didn’t know when we launched to consumers in 2008 was that audio – not just music – would be the future of Spotify.
With more than 200 million users around the globe, Spotify is already one of the world’s most-used apps, but we see an opportunity apart from where we sit today. An opportunity that will allow us to reach beyond music to engage users in entirely new ways.
This opportunity starts with the next phase of growth in audio – podcasting. There are endless ways to tell stories that serve to entertain, to educate, to challenge, to inspire, or to bring us together and break down cultural barriers.
The format is really evolving and while podcasting is still a relatively small business today, I see incredible growth potential for the space and for Spotify in particular.
In just shy of two years, we have become the second-biggest podcasting platform. And, more importantly, users love having podcasts as a part of their Spotify experience. Our podcast users spend almost twice the time on the platform, and spend even more time listening to music. We have also seen that by having unique programming, people who previously thought Spotify was not right for them will give it a try.
That’s why we announced today the strategic acquisitions of two podcasting companies, Gimlet and Anchor. These companies serve two different, distinct roles in the industry. Gimlet is one of the best content creators in the world, with unique, celebrated podcast shows like Homecoming, which was recently adapted into a critically acclaimed show on Amazon Prime, and the internet culture hit Reply All. And Anchor has completely reimagined the path to audio creation, enabling creation for the next generation of podcasters worldwide — 15 billion hours of content on the platform during Q4. These companies are best-in-class and together we will offer differentiated and original content. Gimlet and Anchor will position us to become the leading platform for podcast creators around the world and the leading producer of podcasts.
Read Ek’s complete blog about the podcast acquisitions here.
—
The Mentor meets ScoMo
PodcastOne has just published an episode of The Mentor podcast with Mark Bouris in which Bouris speaks to Prime Minister Scott Morrison about small businesses and their importance for the Australian economy.
Listen to the new episode of The Mentor here.
—
ABC True Crime podcast unravels 20-year-old mountains mystery
In December 2018, the suspicious unsolved disappearance of a missing Blue Mountains mum made headlines when NSW Police announced they had found items of clothing buried underneath her former home during a forensic dig at the property.
19-year-old single mum Belinda Peisley was last seen in Katoomba in September 1998.
Reporter Gina McKeon (pictured) was at the dramatic scene at Belinda’s home alongside Belinda’s father, Mark Wearne. She was already six months into a deep dive into this case for the latest season of the ABC’s Walkley Award-winning podcast Unravel True Crime.
Scenes detailed in last year’s ABC TV + iview special, Who Killed Belinda Peisley covering an inquest into Belinda’s disappearance and suspected death, pointed to a probable homicide.
Episode 1 of Unravel: Last Seen Katoomba was released on February 5, then weekly every Tuesday for five episodes.
Listen to ABC True Crime podcasts here.
—
Big W sponsors Mamamia’s new podcast for parents
Mamamia has launched a new podcast for parents who are inside The Baby Bubble, or are curious about what new parenthood is really like.
Hosted by writer and broadcaster Zoe Marshall and self-described social media maven and gay father Sean Szeps, the weekly series pulls no punches. With launch partner Big W, the hosts are promising it’s what you’d expect from a friend in your ear: no judgement, plenty of laughs.
“Parenting can be lonely, overwhelming and isolating,” said Marshall. “The Baby Bubble is somewhere to come when you can’t handle another witching hour or just don’t know if you’re doing it right.”
“I signed on to do the podcast because I wanted to have an honest conversation about being a first-time parent,” said co-host and new father of twins Szeps.
“As beautiful as the parenting experience can be, it’s equal parts isolation and monotony. This show embraces that contrast. After teaching my son to say ‘please’ and my daughter to do a fist bump, this podcast launching is the third most exciting thing to happen to me this week!”
Episodes drop on Thursdays, with each running for about 30 minutes.
Listen to The Baby Bubble here.
