Hey, this is Gavin Gaddis for Sounds Profitable. Today, Wednesday, February 25th, 2025, with my piece, Recapping on Airfest 2025. In this piece, I'm going to look back at my experience at On Air Fest last week and reflect on the importance of carrying the flame for podcasting. But before we get started with that breaking news, this is your last call.
to register for today's latest presentation from the Sounds Profitable educational series. Join us at 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time for a presentation on podcasting's news audience hosted by Tom Webster and Lamar Johnson, VP of Sponsorship Marketing. at NPR sponsorship subsidiary, National Public Media. Admission is free and you can register now with a link in the show notes.
Now, on to the piece. While podcasting has cemented itself as part of the mainstream, I've just come back from On Air Fest 2025 and saw an industry that's just as vibrant, creative, and collaborative. as it was 11 years ago when I was manually loading episodes of the thrilling Adventure Hour onto a purple 5th Gen iPod Nano before college classes. Rest in peace, purple iPod Nano. Cut down in your prime by being washed in the pocket of my favorite jeans.
For nine years, WorkX Work has been running on AirFest. This year, they added a 15,000 square foot creator space in addition to the available rooms in the Wythe Hotel. Panels, live shows, and installations spread across four locations. in a little corner of Williamsburg. On paper, it might seem spread out. In practice, I found every single session I attended, or walked by even, bustling with activity.
From keynote sessions in the main hall to intimate sessions in the cinema, I didn't spy a single one that wasn't at least close to the room's capacity, if not overflowing. I'm no stranger to podcast events. Since 2018, I've been to everything from the final pod fest to long running industry staples like podcast movement.
I've seen keynotes with long lines. I've seen individual panels with a big name draw a crowd. But On Air Fest was something else, a thriving crowd of people across both the creative and business sides of the industry actively excited about podcasting. Generally, when waiting in line, it's easy to overhear a snide conversation about scheduling the venue, speaker choice, the menu, or any other details in a laundry list of things someone annoyed at waiting in line for 15 minutes would summon.
Last week was the first time I heard nothing but anticipation. People networking, setting up meetings, planning out the rest of their festival with friends. In a word, it was collaborative. First thing on Thursday morning, the event kicked off with The Information's Julia Black interviewing former Washington Post journalist Taylor Lawrence about power and the creator economy.
When the subject of going independent and leaning into podcasting was brought up, Lauren's offered advice to independent creators at large in the form of a mini history lesson. She recalled the 2010s gold rush for MCNs, that's multi-channel networks, on YouTube. While MCNs still exist today and are viable option, that rush in the 2010s led a lot of YouTubers to sign up to one only to experience brand damage when several big name MCNs fell apart.
Case in point, the Machinima Incorporated fiasco. This shows the value in maintaining one's own brand. Being independent means Lorenz has full control. And with the growth of creator economy, she's able to find internet savvy brands that can work with someone who's been through the ringer. Quote.
I have to find brands that have high risk tolerance and quote Lauren said in reference to various online dogpiling she's been through over the years. Brands working in nearby fields such as services that remove public information off the Internet post doxing. are keyed into the creator economy enough to work with YouTubers and podcasters regularly and not shy away from orchestrated or artificial social media blowback from working with a targeted influencer.
Throughout On Air Fest, I spoke to partners of Sounds Profitable and asked them the same handful of questions, always ending with role-playing a new brand asking, why should I bother with podcasting? In the context of what Taylor Lorenz was talking about, I looked to Odile Benefla, head of US at OSHA, and her response.
I think that the listeners, the people, trust podcasters more for what they have to say. The world needs authenticity. We don't want fake news. We want real news. We want real voices. We want to be able to get to know somebody, to trust somebody. and have a conversation. And I think to me, at least personally, this is why I'm so passionate about this medium and why I want to amplify everybody's voice and the content out there."
Looking at the Lorenz panel through a business of podcasting lens, it has never been more viable for journalists to build their own brand outside of whichever outlet they work for, which means they're all the more available to put in the legwork on outlet agnostic investigative podcasts. that'll be in need of sponsors and producers. Filling the niche. From dogpiling to horse running, I attended the Impact of Women sports documentaries with ESPN 30 for 30.
a panel featuring 30 for 30 podcast, Preeti Varathan, head of iHeart Women's Sports, Jessie Katz, and Girl v Horse host, Nicole Tini. Teenie's podcast, a four-part 30 for 30 production about overcoming her epilepsy and training to beat a horse in an ultra marathon, acted as a springboard for a wider discussion of podcasting women's sports in general.
Katz says a core driver for iHeart's creation of the Women's Sports Network in the first place was brands coming to them asking what they had relevant to women's sports. A quote from Varath, unquote. Brands are saying they have the money to spend on women's sports, but they're not seeing the content to run their ads on. End quote. Katz then added, quote,
People are looking for community and those brands make that more possible by supporting the few existing podcasts. There's so many different types of fans who've had nothing to consume. We're not worried about launching too many shows about one subject because over on the men's side, they don't have that problem.
End quote. And thanks to the proven strategy of core podcasting, outfits like iHeart's Women's Sports can quickly spin up more and more niche shows with the confidence that their Venn diagram overlap with the general audience of core sports shows. will drive audiences to either fill underserved niches or discover new ones. A simple episode on women's golf on a core show like Good Game with Sarah Spain, in actuality, can perform as a quiet backdoor pilot.
driving people to the guest expert show all about women's golf. Brands are in tune with what their audiences want. It's up to podcasting to predict those wants as well as put the work into addressing underserved niches. Authenticity and flexibility.
Authenticity is one of podcasting superpowers. It came up in most interviews I conducted in the halls of OnAirFest. Station CEO Cam Pritchard brought up the consistent high brand recall numbers podcast advertisements achieve in comparison to other marketing channels.
Steve Lack of Steve Lack Audio also hit on it in his pitch for audio podcasting's importance. Quote, I like audio first content because it's such an authentic medium. And as you're seeing, I think that Sounds Profitable has been able to show this a lot, that it builds trust. And for all that can be achieved with the highest quality gear and planning, there's still room for scrappy, improvised podcasting.
In the creator conversation Unraveling Family Ties, Rococo Punch story editor Emily Foreman interviewed journalists Tonya Mosley and Matt Katz about their respective podcasts covering family mysteries. In Katz's case, his series Inconceivable Truth has him seeking out information about his biological father after finding out his mother was subjected to an unethical fertility treatment that secretly incorporated an anonymous sperm donor.
At a key narrative moment in his series, Katz had to have a tough conversation with his mother about how he was conceived. This conversation took place just after Thanksgiving dinner. Without a podcasting studio handy, he simply recorded the conversation.
on his iPhone. Sure, the audio is markedly different from the regular narration of the show, but as the clip foreman played for the audience demonstrated, with good editing, you can make one hell of a compelling podcast moment with an authentic moment and a mic.
Any Mike. With South by Southwest and the official podcast stage on the horizon, it's worth taking a moment to step back and look at the current moment as well as the future. On Air Fest has carved out a place for creative leadership to gather every year. a place to gather and take stock of where we're at while making valuable new connections. Podcasting's doing great. Advertisers love us. Video's doing gangbusters.
The industry is full of passionate, collaborative people looking to make as many podcasts as the world will watch or listen to. The key will be harnessing that passion and demonstrating to brands outside the world of podcasting, we're here and more than ready to work. Thanks again for listening to my article recapping on AirFest 2025. For Sounds Profitable, I'm Gavin Gaddis. We hope to see you next week.