NRF Projects High Holiday Spend, Pantheon Media x Spooler, & More

This is the download recap from Sounds Profitable, the most important news from this week and why it matters to people in the business of podcasting. I'm Gavin Gaddis reminding you... That the download is brought to you by Podscribe. You can find out more by heading over to podscribe.com. This week's top stories are...

Calling Creators Kids is how Legacy Media lost the plot. That's by Sean Howard with some edits by James Cridland. A blindingly obvious opportunity for podcast revenue growth. That's from our very own Tom Webster. The collaboration behind the podcast, The Hidden Third. That's a Brian Barletta interview. Building interactive audio experiences in Hit Replay. That's about the Spooler X Pantheon Media collaboration.

And Americans keep holiday spirit strong despite economic uncertainty. Let's get started.

Flight Path founder Sean Howard starts off with a graph from an early September New York Times article representing a failure for Hollywood box office revenue to return to pre-COVID levels. A chart that since 2010 has trended downwards, even if you ignore 2020's sudden stop. Here's a quote from Howard, quote, I believe that consumption patterns for traditional entertainment will not return to pre-COVID levels.

And while COVID had a drastic impact on the industry, it was not the cause of the ongoing decline. The most positive interpretation of this chart is that the curve may be starting to flatten, but there is no sign of a rebound from a trend that started. End quote. Despite consistent and bountiful research proving content creators and their user-created content is eating traditional media's lunch as far as time consumed and money spent.

Howard still encounters the antiquated idea that influencers are just kids in their bedrooms, not making real media. He points to places like South Asia, where traditional broadcasters either simulcast or fully skip legacy TV broadcasting and just go straight to YouTube. Jimmy MrBeastDonaldson has built a media empire. valued at over $1 billion from a YouTube channel. College Humor has rebounded with their buyout and dropout rebrand, reaching an estimated monthly recurring revenue of $6 million.

Content creators, influencers, and everything in between have caused a seismic shift in entertainment over the past 20 years. It's well worth acknowledging the power they have with modern audiences.

All right, let's talk about a new article from Tom, the guy who makes bar graphs, Webster. He focuses on a particular bar graph showing encouraging signs in the podcast landscape 2025, specifically relating to time spent consuming podcasts. This increased from six hours last year to just over six hours and 20 minutes this year, effectively adding one more podcast worth of time for those with bite-sized tastes. Improvements that can act as a proxy for engagement.

and how important podcasts are to coming in audiences' daily lives. Even with podcasting success, the ratio of users who give podcasts a shot and those who still partake regularly is still at just about 50% conversion. Webster argues podcasting as a medium can do a lot better. More than 50% of people who simply try the concept of streaming television or listen to a song on Spotify for the first time is higher than that.

There's little reason podcasting can't up those numbers, especially with its ubiquity being available in basically every major media app. The blindingly obvious opportunity the headline teases comes in the form of a 2025 weekly consumption data piece broken down by how much time respondents spend consuming podcasts.

With consumption handily exceeding 6 hours per week with men in general and ages 18 to 54 specifically, women are only listening to 5.5 hours per week and the 55 plus demographic is only clocking in at 5.6. Podcast companies have a huge opportunity to create a meaningful footprint with women age 55 plus who aren't really listening to podcasts.

In last year's report, looking at attention and trust, podcasting scored as the most trusted ad-supported platform for Americans age 55 plus in terms of the personalities bringing advertising messages. Here's a quote from Webster. That means growing not just reach, but engagement with older women who could have a force multiplier effect on overall advertising performance from the perspective of a buyer, certainly.

If, as an industry, we do a better job researching, creating content for, and marketing to women over 55 and take some of their low attention media time away and shunt it into nutritious and delicious podcasts. That can make a noticeable difference in conversions and brand measures for the right brand. End quote. Ending things out, Webster points to something more directly actionable for readers to mull over.

Film and TV podcasts remains a noticeably underdeveloped category with the older women demographic. Regardless if one is thinking about podcasts starring actors, shows about TV itself, or podcasts re-watching popular shows, The hypothetical demand of the 55-plus woman in podcasting's audience outpaces the performance.

Sounds Profitable has a new interview with The Roost, VP of Revenue and Partnerships, Catherine Brown, and journalist Mariana Van Zeller, discussing her new podcast, The Hidden Third, produced in partnership with Monk Media. With The Roost now part of the digital talent management company Night Media, the network is broadening its horizons beyond its comedy and gaming-focused roots. This new focus on creator-led stories has brought together Zeller and Muck Media.

to report on the hidden third of global commerce, which in this case would be the black market. The Roost handles distribution, ad sales, and growth, while Zeller and Muck Media are able to focus on the content itself. without sweating the details of future live shows, special investigations and community events.

Once again, collaboration is the word of the day. In a new deep dive conversation, Brian Barletta is joined by Spooler co-founders James Boggs and Andy Bowers, as well as Pantheon Media co-founders Christian Swain and Peter Ferrioli. The group spends a half hour breaking down how the two companies came together to create Hit Replay, an interactive podcast puzzle game produced in partnership with the San Francisco Travel Association.

to promote the Grateful Dead at 60 San Francisco legacy project. Beyond that, they drill down into both Spooler and Pantheon Media's philosophies regarding generative AI use, disclosure of voice clones and content, and their anti-slop. Mission.

Inside Audio Marketing takes a look at the new NRF Winter Holidays data featuring survey data collected by Prosper Insights and Analytics. The survey was conducted in the first week of October with 8,247 U.S. adults. Consumers surveyed expected to spend an average of $890.49 USD on holiday gifts, food, decorations, and other seasonable items.

Seasonable being a word I just made up instead of saying seasonal, which is on the script. That marks the second highest expectation in the survey's 23 year history, representing just a 1.3% decline from last year's record high. of $901.99. Of that money, $627.93 is expected to go towards gift purchasing. Shopping starts earlier than the traditional beginning of the holiday season.

with 42% of consumers already browsing and buying before November. 85% of respondents anticipate higher holiday prices. due to tariffs, and 63% plan to do the bulk of their shopping using Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals on Thanksgiving weekend, which is a 4% increase from last year.

Online shopping remains the most popular anticipated destination, with 55% of respondents expecting to place holiday orders digitally. Grocery stores come second with 46%, and then department stores... get 44% and discount outlets bring up the rear with 42%. Finally, it's time for our quick hits. These are articles that I've covered throughout the week that didn't quite make top coverage today, but are still worth including in your weekend reading.

This week, I've got for you a new episode of PodCraft features guest Tom Webster. Hey, I know that guy joining in to discuss the power of using research as a creative partner. The BBC has posted their Q3 audience report for BBC Sounds, including a total of 252 million plays on on-demand radio and podcast content across Q2. Inside Audio Marketing has coverage of Odyssey's new State of Audio report, focusing on the impact of content creators. Netflix is not looking to buy Warner Brothers.

Hernan Lopez pitches the streamer's best option for acquisition in actuality would be Spotify. And Axios covers the announcement that the IAB is moving new fronts to March starting next year, as well as also launching a new upfront called Creator Fronts, meant to run alongside podcast upfront next fall. That was the download recap brought to you by Sounds Profitable and Podscribe.

I know I went through today's stories fast, so be sure to check out the links to everything I've talked about by clicking the link in your show notes, or you can go to soundsprofitable.com, mouse over to the download section, and find every episode ever. As usual, I'm Gavin Gaddis. Our producers are myself, Brian Barletta and Tom Webster. And I would like to leave a special thanks to you for sticking with me as I brought you all the top stories you might have missed from this past week. Robot.

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