This is the download from Sounds Profitable, your daily source for the essential news in the business of podcasting. I'm Gavin Gaddis. Here's what you need to know for today, Wednesday, April 16th. First up, The Advertising Landscape Part 1, Reach by Tom Webster. Sounds Profitable's latest research is the largest study to date on podcast advertising effectiveness in the United States, surveying over 5,000 Americans, 18 plus.
The report will be published in several parts, breaking down different aspects of the data into manageable chunks. The first edition focuses on podcast advertising's reach. Key findings include 31% of Americans, 18+, being monthly consumers of ad-supported podcasting. which thus means a substantive portion of the monthly podcast audience does not perceive that their podcast has ads.
The report and a recording of Tom Webster's webinar debuting the report are available now on soundsprofitable.com. Link in the show notes as always. Next up, Spotify's global Wednesday outage. A post from Richard Lawler on The Verge confirms that at 8.45 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, Spotify's status account on X posted about being aware of some issues and looking into them.
This, combined with the Megaphone's status site, confirmed a global impact on Megaphone's CMS, API, analytics, and content delivery. The outage lasted until 11.15 a.m. Eastern Standard Time or thereabouts. Next up, why Signal Hill is measuring video podcast ads and why video is a net gain for podcasting.
The current state of YouTube podcast advertising is similar to how podcasting was in 2015. Baked In is the name of the game. While there is not yet any way to dynamically serve ads into video podcasts on YouTube, there are ways to measure brand lift. Signal Hill Insights has spent a year piloting measurement on embedded YouTube podcast ads, and their findings of the test include the sentiment that host-read video podcast ads share the same benefits as audio host-read ads.
Audio remains a foundation of podcasting on which everything else stands, but video is part of the medium's evolution, and proper advertiser support is key to continuing that growth. Next up, 77% of companies have increased their influencer spending this year. TubeFilter takes a look at a new report from eMarketer and Spotter that found 77% of surveyed companies have increased their influencer marketing spend this year.
Creator respondents say they're looking for long-term partnerships with compatible brands. Of the 139 marketers surveyed, 43.9% said that finding the right creators is their biggest challenge faced in their influencer marketing campaigns. Finding long-term creator partnerships is the emerging creator marketing tactic right now, according to 37.4% of respondents.
Podcasting serves as the template for that, with many long-term brand partnerships working so well, they're indelibly linked to that podcast. Just try discussing Serial Season 1 without MailChimp coming up. For a final top story, The Gauge. March Madness lifts cable. Streaming competition grows as seasonal trends take effect. Nielsen data showing how TV performed last month, while time spent viewing TV in March was down 6% compared to February, likely due to seasonal shifts.
Streaming kept on trucking. 43.8% of TV usage in March was streaming content. Macs charted the highest month-over-month increase among streaming services and increased... 6% in March, largely attributed to the strength of the White Lotus reaching the end of Season 3. Time will tell if the viral success of The Pit and the return of The Last of Us with Season 2 will move that needle even more for Matt.
Regardless, the March data shows something increasingly relevant to podcasters as well as TV overall. the power of live content, live in quotes there. both actual live sports content and the timed releases that generate week-to-week discussion and keep intellectual property in the zeitgeist longer than publishing an entire season of it in a single day.
As for the rest of the news, Edison Research and Sirius XM Media have released early info from an upcoming women's audio report, which debuts Tuesday, April 29th at 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Acast is expanding their sports offering with a new exclusive podcast deal signed with the New York Times sports company, The Atlantic. Speaking of ACAST, by the way, the company has welcomed Tommy Walters as their new Senior Director, Global Research and Insights.
Digiday covers Publicist Group's latest quarterly earnings call in which CEO Arthur Sandun discussed the more reserved atmosphere among advertisers in the wake of new and proposed trade tariffs. And Headliner is celebrating their birthday with a look back at seven years of history. This includes some stats about the company's output, such as 193 countries having used Headliner, along with a perhaps joking response of them aiming to reach Antarctica by their eighth birthday.
Be sure to check out the links to every article mentioned right in your podcast listening app or at soundsprofitable.com where you can also subscribe to the newsletter version. The download is written and produced by myself, Brian Barletta, and Tom Webster. I'm Gavin Gannis. Download us again tomorrow.