Welcome to Hot Pod, a newsletter about podcasts. This is issue 203, published April 9, 2019.
Luminary to launch at the end of the month. The paid audio content app, which has raised $100 million in venture capital pre-launch, announced last week that it will officially roll out to the public on April 23. This marks a slight change to the timeline originally announced in the startup’s shiny New York Times unveiling, which noted that the platform was “set to arrive by June.” The app will be available for download in the U.S., Canada, U.K., and Australia.
At launch, paying Luminary subscribers will have access to 24 out of the 40-plus exclusive podcasts currently planned for the service. That starting slate includes a mix of new projects — from folks like Adam Davidson, Topic Studios, Lauren Shippen, Guy Raz, Karamo Brown, Pushkin Industries, and The Ringer — and existing podcasts like Love+Radio, Roads and Kingdoms’ The Trip, and Wondery’s Hollywood & Crime that are…
