The pace of change the podcast industry is undergoing is staggering. The implications for podcasters, hosting providers, podcast listening app developers, and advertisers and agencies are enormous. And so is the growth potential. Presented as a companion to the weekly newsletter of the same name, our podcast provides you with direct access to our narrated articles, interviews with industry experts, bleeding-edge research, and can't miss industry news recaps. That Sounds Profitable, right? Assumptions and conventional wisdom will be challenged. Easy answers with no proof of efficacy will be exposed. Because the thinking that got podcast advertising close to a billion dollars annually will need to be drastically overhauled to bring in the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars podcast advertising deserves.
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Register here for the Trust and Attention: Why Sports Media Wins (And How Brands Prove It) webinar! Today in the business of podcasting: New data from the 2026 UK Advertising Landscape Study shows podcasting already reaches more 18-to-34 year olds in the UK than broadcast TV, challenging the assumption that podcasting is a niche channel for media planners targeting younger audiences. A case study from Primary Technology shows that publishing video episodes on Apple Podcasts roughly doubled plays...
Today in the business of podcasting: New Sounds Profitable research finds 86% of podcast listeners consume clips on at least one platform, raising questions about paid clipping strategies and whether flooding social feeds with short-form content helps or hurts long-term audience growth. Signal Hill Insights' Paul Riismandel examines what it actually means to have a "hit" podcast, finding that even The Joe Rogan Experience — the #1 show on reach-based charts — reached only 20% of the U.S. podcast...
Guest writer Ben Robins analyzes new data from The 2026 UK Advertising Landscape Study. Register here for the Pod-Tails and Cocktails waitlist. A new study from Sounds Profitable and Sound Insights finds that podcasting reaches 60% of UK adults aged 18 to 34 monthly, outpacing broadcast TV's 57% reach in the same demographic. The 2026 UK Advertising Landscape Study, fielded with more than 5,000 UK adults and weighted to census, also finds that 35 to 54 year olds have the highest rate of "Prime" ...
Today in the business of podcasting: Podigee has launched video podcast distribution across YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify, making the feature available on every plan with no waitlist. Acast reported its first-ever profitable Q1, with 20% net sales growth overall and 43% organic growth in North America. Megaphone is transitioning its campaign management to the Spotify Ad Server starting July 15, 2026, enabling new video ad formats while removing third-party VAST serving. Radio Ink contribu...
Podcast Description Today in the business of podcasting: Bloomberg's Ashley Carman surveys the growing landscape of AI-generated podcasts, examining how hosting platforms like RSS.com are setting monetization guardrails and how Spotify is rolling out a new badge to authenticate real music artists. John Spurlock's HLS Podcast Radar tracks video podcasts using the alternate enclosure tag, which several hosting platforms support but Apple Podcasts does not, as Buzzsprout announces that its video di...
This week in the business of podcasting: Tom Webster of Sounds Profitable audited iHeartMedia radio stations across three mid-size U.S. markets and found that less than 4% of weekday airtime in Pittsburgh features locally produced content, while Indianapolis registers effectively zero. The research challenges the premise that a SiriusXM acquisition would meaningfully reduce local programming that, by most measures, has already disappeared. New S&P Global Market Intelligence data shows podcas...
Today in the business of podcasting: Tom Webster audits iHeartMedia station clusters in Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and Salt Lake City and finds that locally originating programming makes up a tiny fraction of weekday airtime, while local advertising load remains far higher, reframing what a SiriusXM acquisition would actually affect. Amplitude Media Partners' Reggie Risseeuw breaks down recent Megaphone ad server updates, including new Priority Pre-Book campaign tools and a mandatory geotargeting...
Today in the business of podcasting: Libsyn has announced that video functionality is now available across all its hosting plans, with direct video distribution to Spotify — powered by the Spotify Distribution API — starting at $25 per month. Marketing firm JoneKiri is offering brand sponsorship opportunities for a live performance of Hanging with Doctor Z at Netflix Is a Joke Fest, with options ranging from organic product placement to full season four title sponsorship. Patreon has launched a ...
Today in the business of podcasting: Nielsen has integrated Triton Digital's Podcast Metrics Demos+ data into its Nielsen Media Impact planning platform, making it easier for advertisers to evaluate podcasts alongside other media channels with the same precision and comparability. Nielsen also launched Predictive Sales Lift, a new outcomes-based capability to help media buyers forecast sales lift for video ad campaigns on Nielsen One Ads. Spotify's Q1 2026 earnings show continued growth across t...
Today's episode details significant movements in the podcast industry, including potential merger talks between iHeartMedia and SiriusXM and new S&P Global data showing continued growth in US podcast consumption, especially with video integration. Spotify has launched new fitness features and Claude AI integration, while Spanish platform iVoox debuted a groundbreaking TV ad campaign. The episode also highlights Audion's $15 million US expansion and other industry news, such as Peabody Award winners and insights from podcast leaders.
This week in the business of podcasting: SiriusXM Media has become the exclusive audio advertising representative for YouTube in the United States, giving advertisers the ability to buy guaranteed audio ad impressions against YouTube audiences at scale for the first time through SiriusXM's combined ad technology stack. Sounds Profitable's new Audio Primes report, drawn from The Podcast Landscape 2025 , identifies the 22% of podcast consumers who listen to 75% or more of their shows as audio, and...
Today in the business of podcasting: Sounds Profitable's new Audio Primes report finds that 22% of podcast consumers listen to 75% or more of their episodes as audio-only — and 90% of them use YouTube, making them heavier consumers of video platforms than the average podcast listener while still choosing audio for podcasts. Beehiiv is expanding its creator platform with MCP-powered AI podcast analytics and a new webinar product that supports up to 10,000 attendees, positioning the platform as a ...
Today in the business of podcasting: SiriusXM Media has become the exclusive audio advertising representative for YouTube in the United States, giving advertisers access to guaranteed impressions against YouTube's audio audiences at scale for the first time. The deal connects YouTube to SiriusXM's broad ad sales infrastructure, which already spans Pandora and a wide network of podcast and streaming inventory. A new Radiocentre report, High Gain Audio , analyzed by WPP Media, finds that multiplat...
What platforms record and what podcast consumers are actually doing can be two different things. New research from Edison Research introduces "Audio Primes" — the 22% of podcast consumers who listen to 75% or more of their podcasts as audio — finding that this segment skews younger, more educated, and higher-earning than the average podcast listener, upending common assumptions about who chooses audio-first consumption. Ninety percent of Audio Primes use YouTube for podcast listening, but predom...
Today in the business of podcasting: Netflix Co-CEO, President and Director Ted Sarandos called out podcasting as a bright spot in the company's Q1 2026 earnings, noting that internal data shows video podcasts are driving incremental engagement, with particular strength in daytime viewing and on mobile devices. Adobe has deepened its partnership with Speechmatics by adding on-device speech-to-text transcription to its Premiere video editing suite, processing an hour of audio in about 55 seconds ...
Today in the business of podcasting: The IAB, in partnership with PwC, reports that digital audio ad spend reached a record $8.4 billion in 2025, a 10.2% year-over-year increase, with podcast advertising revenue climbing to $2.9 billion on 17.6% growth that outpaced the broader digital audio market. A Scalable newsletter analysis examines how Netflix's early video podcasting push has stalled, with the YouTube presence of major Netflix-exclusive shows beginning to atrophy as the platform makes no...
This week in the business of podcasting: Tom Webster previews the new Audio Primes 2026 report from Sounds Profitable, showing that audio-first podcast listeners are nearly twice as likely as video-first viewers to reject AI-generated voices in their favorite shows. The split suggests a widening gap in how synthetic audio is received across listening modes. Samba TV VP of Measurement Science Alyson Sprague debuts the company's first Netflix Podcast Ranker, drawn from smart-TV viewing data across...
Today in the business of podcasting: Tom Webster's new Sounds Profitable piece previews the Audio Primes report, which finds audio-first podcast listeners are notably less receptive to AI-generated voices in their favorite shows than their video-first counterparts, with Video Primes twice as likely to keep listening. YouTube is rolling out two new livestream ad behaviors: pausing ads for viewers who send Super Chats or virtual gifts, and automatically delaying ad breaks during peak chat activity...
A look at how audiences that consume media differently feel about AI generated voices. Sounds Profitable's new Audio Primes study reveals that podcast listeners who consume at least 75% of their content through audio are significantly more resistant to AI-generated voices than their video-first counterparts, with 48% of Audio Primes saying they would be less likely to continue listening compared to only 40% of Video Primes. The research, drawn from The Podcast Landscape 2025, introduces a new mi...
Today in the business of podcasting: Magellan AI has published a case study with American Public Media showing how podcast attribution data transformed APM's advertiser conversations and helped the organization achieve its strongest digital sales performance since 2021. The study makes the case for treating podcasts and streaming audio as measurable, accountable components of the media mix rather than discretionary brand-spend. Ad Results Media has released a new Playbook on navigating the Netfl...
Today in the business of podcasting: The podcast industry is in another M&A cycle, but today's buyers look different from those who drove acquisitions in the pre-pandemic era. Rather than investing in podcasting infrastructure, companies like OpenAI, The Chernin Group, and Fox Entertainment are acquiring shows that have proven they can leverage their audiences — reflecting the medium's shift from speculative asset to established media property. Oxford Road's ORBIT data shows 80% of the top 1...
Today in the business of podcasting: Register for Audio Primes: The People Who Listen to Podcasts . The Podcast Show London 2026 will take place May 20 and 21 at the Business Design Centre in Islington, with Global and iHeartPodcasts returning as headline partners. Global's presence will spotlight its newly launched Global Studios division, focused on premium podcast and digital content creation. Samba TV has published its first Netflix Podcast Ranker, revealing that 13% of U.S. Netflix househol...
Today in the business of podcasting... Sounds Profitable's Bryan Barletta reflects on the company's two-day Business of Podcasting space at Advertising Week Europe, where nearly 450 attendees gathered across 16 panels, arguing that podcasting has earned its place in mainstream media conversations and must now show up in the rooms where broader advertising decisions are made. Sport Social Podcast Network's Jim Salveson makes the case for sports podcasting as a commercial and editorial extension o...
Today in the business of podcasting... Sounds Profitable's Bryan Barletta reports that the Business of Podcasting programming track at Advertising Week Europe drew nearly 450 unique attendees across 16 panels, a signal that mainstream advertisers are actively seeking out podcasting expertise on their own. Barletta argues that podcasting's reach, with 55% of Americans listening monthly per Sounds Profitable's Podcast Landscape 2025 report, now warrants a commensurate presence in the rooms where m...
With podcasting having arrived at the mainstream, it’s time for the industry to be in the rooms where decisions are made. Podcasting has reached mainstream status, with 55% of Americans consuming a podcast monthly, and industry leaders are now expanding their presence beyond podcast-specific events into major global advertising and marketing conferences. Sounds Profitable is driving this growth by placing podcasting content at high-profile venues like SXSW, Advertising Week Europe, and Cannes Li...
Today in the business of podcasting: Soros Fund Management is leading an investment round in MeidasTouch Network, the progressive media company behind The MeidasTouch Podcast. The move follows prior Soros investments in podcast-related companies including Audacy and Crooked Media. Marketing agency Right Side Up has published a newsletter revisiting its generative engine optimization (GEO) framework, outlining how brands can improve their visibility in AI-generated answers from tools like ChatGPT...
Today in the business of podcasting: YouTube is rolling out new TV features including Stations (a FAST-style 24/7 channel hub), TV Companion (phone-to-TV interactivity), and voice-enabled Ask chatbot support on smart TVs. Despite sports podcasting's success in the U.S., sports podcasts barely register in Latin America's Spotify charts, but Genuina Media's David R. González sees the 2026 FIFA World Cup as a major growth opportunity for LatAm sports podcasters and advertisers. Spotify has launched...
Today in the business of podcasting: Red Seat Ventures has launched Speakeasy, an all-in-one podcast hosting, distribution, and monetization platform supporting RSS, HLS, and video formats. CEO Chris Balfe says the platform addresses the growing complexity of podcast distribution beyond the traditional RSS feed. Sports podcast audiences show stronger athlete loyalty than general sports fans, with 76% of sports podcast listeners continuing to follow traded athletes versus 51% of general fans, per...
This week in the business of podcasting: beehiiv has launched podcast hosting and monetization, letting newsletter creators consolidate their audio content into one platform with IAB compliant infrastructure and built-in growth tools. New Sounds Profitable research reveals that podcast discovery relies heavily on algorithmic amplification, leaving moderate and centrist audiences without the institutional infrastructure needed to bring them into the medium. A 2025 survey shows podcast listenershi...
Beehiiv has launched integrated podcast hosting and monetization, positioning audio as a core product pillar. New research from Sounds Profitable reveals that 25% of Americans who haven't listened to podcasts skew politically centrist, a group poorly reached by algorithmic platforms. Additionally, Spotify's programmatic ad platform saw significant growth, though media buyers still favor direct deals for host-read ads, alongside various other industry announcements.
