Kast Media accused of "not paying creators"

Visit https://podnews.net/update/kast-media-payouts for all the links, and to get our newsletter. Kast Media stands accused of not paying its podcasters. Jim Cornette and Brian Last devoted almost an hour of their latest show covering claims of Kast Media's behaviour. They allege that the company hasn't paid for the advertising sold on the show for some time; and that, should Kast Media's acquisition by Live One go ahead - and they sign an agreement - they would only be paid two-thirds of the money they are currently owed, with the final third as shares. Without the Live One deal however, which was pre-announced two months ago but has yet to go through, Kast Media is likely to go bankrupt, according to Kast Media's own lawyer, they say. The apparent situation is described by the podcasters as "forcing us into a bad deal". Cornette alleges that all of Kast Media's sales team have left the company. Podnews has noticed that a number of Kast Media staff are indeed posting on LinkedIn that they are "open for work", while others left the company a few months ago. Notably, Mike Jensen, the company's former Chief Business Officer, launched Rhapsody Voices, his own podcast network, in June. Jim Cornette's shows are now represented by Rhapsody Voices. Another Kast Media show Happy Sad Confused, which signed in January, had a Kast Media logo on its thumbnail in mid June, but now doesn't, and has shifted hosting to Libsyn. Colin Thomson, the CEO of Kast Media, emailed us a link to a guide on US libel law. He later denied that this email was meant as a threat, telling us: "Was curious myself. I didn't know, looked it up". A TV rewatch show, Full House Rewind, has launched, starring Dave Coulier. The SAG-AFTRA strike appears not to affect the show. Over 700 podcasts are now participating in the Open Prefix Project, including ours. The service offers free and open podcast analytics - here are our stats, and