From Chicago, the latest from our daily newsletter at podnews.net with Magellan AI. The Podnews report card results for 2025 were released on stage at Evolutions with comments and scores by creators about the podcast platforms we all use. YouTube scored significantly higher for all categories, though creators expressed concern about walled gardens and about perceived complication getting listed.
Apple continued to be creators' favourite platform though in the apps category the independent podcast app Pocket Casts was number two. We've published the full results. You'll find them linked from our show notes and our newsletter at podnews.net. What is a podcast? Dan Granger spoke at Evolutions, offering a new definition for podcasting. The stakes are nothing less than the sustainability of the entire channel, he said.
The company has published a white paper for download and, in the media roundtable, a three-part documentary that traces the evolution of podcasting from pirate radio routes Spotify announced a number of changes and enhancements to advertising on its platform. It's launched a new programmatic offering called Spotify Ad Exchange and a new AI ad creator tool dubbed Spotify Gen AI Ads. Their launch notes contain a number of stats about how Spotify is working.
Podcasting is the highest earning category on Patreon with 6.7 million memberships, the company says, announcing a new podcast network partnership program, launching with Sony Music and Wondery. Shows will offer exclusive media and fan experiences and Patreon will host premium audio. Triton Digital is to expand its U.S. podcast ranker to include all publishers.
There will be a quarterly ranking of the podcasts with the most listeners based on a survey and that additional ranker will also give audience profiles. Magellan AI's spend analysis now includes estimated podcast ad spend broken out by format, programmatic, run of network or host-read ads, which will enable smarter planning. Google has announced a new feature for Notebook LM, which adds sources of information from across the web.
And podcast hosting company CoHost has achieved version 2.2 of the IAB podcast measurement guidelines. Ausha, Podigee and PRX are still outside the annual recertification window. Congratulations to Libsyn's Rob Walch, who said yesterday that he'd been working in podcasting full-time for 20 years as of this week. And in podcast news, This Guy Sucked is a brand new history podcast from Multitude, by haters, for haters.
No historically significant dead person is safe, and every episode proves that the best part of understanding the past is criticising it. Samuel Cummings, an American small arms dealer, is the subject of the latest show, Who's a Guy Who Sucked? And with Airwave, Motley Fool Money is a daily podcast for stock investors with foolish advice every day. Yesterday's edition looked at tariffs and Tesla.
The podcast has been with Airwave since November 2023, and we thank them for their support this month. And this podcast is sponsored by Magellan AI. Don't get downloads, get repeat listeners. Measure promo impact with pod-to-pod attribution. Measure repeat listeners with Magellan AI. There's a link in the show notes. And that's the latest from our newsletter. To read all the stories and subscribe for free, we're at podnews.net.