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Friday, July 17
Audio remains the bedrock of podcasting, says a new report from Nielsen. 90% of monthly podcast consumers choose to listen, the data suggests, and most of podcast consumption is still audio, by a large margin. It quotes Edison Research’s Share of Ear for Q1, which sys that 20% of time spent with ad-supported audio is podcasting: radio is more than three-times larger.
Podcasting is continuing to grow in the UK; though Brits are disapproving of AI hosts - The UK Podcast Consumer 2026 was released yesterday by Edison Research at SSRS. UK shows are also reaching a considerable amount of Americans, the study shows. The podcast landscape in the country is very top-heavy, with the top 10 titles reaching a third of all weekly podcast consumers.
The podcaster behind The Pragmatic Engineer has pulled his video from Spotify, writing a long piece on LinkedIn detailing the issues he’s had, and suggesting that the company doesn’t care about reliability or execution.
- Meanwhile, co-founder of podcast production company Podmasters, Martin Bojtos, tells the Podnews Weekly Review this week that, for a while, the #1 source of revenue for the company was video income from Spotify’s partner program. The company is celebrating its tenth anniversary.
- The company’s changes at Megaphone - to use a new ad server - take place today.
✅There's More: HERE
WARC Media released a report on YouTube - which, it says, is worth $40bn to advertisers, but revenue growth is slowing down. TikTok is set to grow bigger than YouTube by the end of the decade; but Netflix is expected to pull ahead in the next eighteen months. Users spend 58 minutes a day on the platform.
Podcast and video production agency The Podcast Guys is officially a Great Place to Work, after gaining certification from the workplace culture company. Certification is based entirely on anonymous survey feedback from employees. The company has offices in London and New York, with teams across the UK, Europe, and the Middle East.
In the UK, the Future of Media Awards shared its shortlist. There are two podcast awards.
Triton Digital’s Sounder has added sentiment analysis, which enables advertisers to target podcast content based on the emotional tone, as well as categorisation and words used.Triton Digital has also added Amazon DSP to its programmatic marketplace, so advertisers buying through Amazon DSP can now buy Triton-powered audio ads (in podcasts and streaming audio) while layering in Amazon’s first-party shopping, browsing and streaming signals to help target the ads. (Spotify and iHeart have also added integrations recently.)
Thursday, July 16
Podcast and video production agency The Podcast Guys is officially a Great Place to Work, after gaining certification from the workplace culture company. Certification is based entirely on anonymous survey feedback from employees. The company has offices in London and New York, with teams across the UK, Europe, and the Middle East.
In the UK, the Future of Media Awards shared its shortlist. There are two podcast awards.
Triton Digital’s Sounder has added sentiment analysis, which enables advertisers to target podcast content based on the emotional tone, as well as categorisation and words used.Triton Digital has also added Amazon DSP to its programmatic marketplace, so advertisers buying through Amazon DSP can now buy Triton-powered audio ads (in podcasts and streaming audio) while layering in Amazon’s first-party shopping, browsing and streaming signals to help target the ads. (Spotify and iHeart have also added integrations recently.)
✅There's More: HERE
A new study seems to show that audiobook listeners prefer some AI narrators over human voices. The study, conducted by Edison Research at SSRS, blind-tested Spoken Multi-Cast narration, and discovered that, while 31% of listeners said they’d be likely to listen to AI, after listening, that number had risen to 65%. (61% thought that the AI was human). You can hear the clips here.
A separate study by Differentology, conducted for Azerion, also claims that AI-generated voices can be good for brands - especially if the accents match the part of the country where you’re from. Recommendations rose 3x when people heard voices with a regional accent matched to where the listener was, like Scotland, Wales or Yorkshire.
Audioboom released its H1/26 financial results. The company made a gross profit of $9.9mn, up +33% year-on-year. Revenue was up 30%; for Q2/26 they report 183 million downloads and video views, up 84% year-on-year.
In the UK, the BBC also released its annual report and accounts. BBC podcasts outside the UK (those funded by advertising) drew over 515 million downloads in the financial year, and 116 million listeners. In total the BBC earned £2,155mn (US $2,884mn) in commercial revenue - unchanged year-on-year. The Corporation earned £3,879mn (US $5,191mn) revenue, +1%, from the mandatory licence fee. BBC commercial activities gave £377mn to the public service: a figure that is -3.5% lower year-on-year.
Smaller independent podcast production companies have limited options when it comes to advertising representation: many join larger sales houses: but the commercial focus for those tends to be on the biggest shows and not on these smaller ones. SoundBridge Media launches today in London, aiming to fill this gap: the company is founded by an experienced team from commercial sales and media agencies.
Podcasting has never been more interesting to advertising agencies and marketers, according to new research released by Westwood One. The study reveals that 76% of agencies and advertisers currently advertise in podcasts - a x5 increase in the last twelve years.
SpotsNow has launched a new AI Search for podcast ad buyers. The tool helps buyers discover more shows that fit their target, and helps them focus on audience fit and performance. Each search also returns available last-minute inventory matched to the advertiser’s audience and criteria, to help sellers fill sports that would otherwise go unsold.
Podtrac has launched Podcast Promo Trades, a new free service to allow podcasters to grow shows by trading promos in other podcasts. Podtrac’s Promo Platform has been used by a number of large podcasters to expand their audience and accelerate growth, the company says.
The iOS 27, tvOS 27 and macOS 27 public beta is now available to anyone. It brings Apple Podcasts video to the macOS desktop and to Apple TV devices, as well as a new AI service. (We’ve been running the developer beta for a while.)
Switched On Pop has launched on Netflix. The Vulture show is now video-exclusive to Netflix, and has published almost 500 episodes.
Think getting your podcast on Netflix means it has to come off YouTube? That’s been the case so far, but Deadline reports that Alan’s Universe, from Alan Chikin Chow, will be available on Netflix as well as YouTube.
Podpage has launched episode alerts by email - alerting your listeners when you publish new episodes. It’s a simple way to reach listeners with new content as soon as you’ve published it.
Wednesday, July 15
A separate study by Differentology, conducted for Azerion, also claims that AI-generated voices can be good for brands - especially if the accents match the part of the country where you’re from. Recommendations rose 3x when people heard voices with a regional accent matched to where the listener was, like Scotland, Wales or Yorkshire.
Audioboom released its H1/26 financial results. The company made a gross profit of $9.9mn, up +33% year-on-year. Revenue was up 30%; for Q2/26 they report 183 million downloads and video views, up 84% year-on-year.
In the UK, the BBC also released its annual report and accounts. BBC podcasts outside the UK (those funded by advertising) drew over 515 million downloads in the financial year, and 116 million listeners. In total the BBC earned £2,155mn (US $2,884mn) in commercial revenue - unchanged year-on-year. The Corporation earned £3,879mn (US $5,191mn) revenue, +1%, from the mandatory licence fee. BBC commercial activities gave £377mn to the public service: a figure that is -3.5% lower year-on-year.
Smaller independent podcast production companies have limited options when it comes to advertising representation: many join larger sales houses: but the commercial focus for those tends to be on the biggest shows and not on these smaller ones. SoundBridge Media launches today in London, aiming to fill this gap: the company is founded by an experienced team from commercial sales and media agencies.
✅There's More: HERE
Tuesday, July 14
Podcasting has never been more interesting to advertising agencies and marketers, according to new research released by Westwood One. The study reveals that 76% of agencies and advertisers currently advertise in podcasts - a x5 increase in the last twelve years.
SpotsNow has launched a new AI Search for podcast ad buyers. The tool helps buyers discover more shows that fit their target, and helps them focus on audience fit and performance. Each search also returns available last-minute inventory matched to the advertiser’s audience and criteria, to help sellers fill sports that would otherwise go unsold.
Podtrac has launched Podcast Promo Trades, a new free service to allow podcasters to grow shows by trading promos in other podcasts. Podtrac’s Promo Platform has been used by a number of large podcasters to expand their audience and accelerate growth, the company says.
The iOS 27, tvOS 27 and macOS 27 public beta is now available to anyone. It brings Apple Podcasts video to the macOS desktop and to Apple TV devices, as well as a new AI service. (We’ve been running the developer beta for a while.)
Switched On Pop has launched on Netflix. The Vulture show is now video-exclusive to Netflix, and has published almost 500 episodes.
Think getting your podcast on Netflix means it has to come off YouTube? That’s been the case so far, but Deadline reports that Alan’s Universe, from Alan Chikin Chow, will be available on Netflix as well as YouTube.
Podpage has launched episode alerts by email - alerting your listeners when you publish new episodes. It’s a simple way to reach listeners with new content as soon as you’ve published it.
✅There's More: HERE
Exclusive: Daylight Media has signed Bill Maher’s Club Random - it becomes the latest show to join the network in a period of fast growth. Daylight will work with Club Random on sales and distribution; nine other shows have recently joined the platform.
“Consumers simply don’t have the attention span they once had.” Writing for Podnews today, DAX US’s Brian Conlon suggests this is a myth waiting to trip up the unwary marketer: and, in fact, the data points to consumers just making choices on where to direct their attention.
A podcast app that removes advertising, ZeroAds, has measured the ads in 60,000 episodes submitted by their users. The median, the company says, is 4.3 minutes of ads per episode - 10.2% ads. But some shows are significantly more. All measured using at least 25 different episodes, iHeart’s Handel On The Law is 44% ads; iHeart’s Covino & Rich is 36.7% ads; iHeart’s Dear Chelsea is 36.6% ads; and iHeart’s The Ben Maller Show is 35.1% ads. (There’s something linking all four of those and we can’t think what it is.)
Megaphone switches to using Spotify Ad Server from Friday. Since we reported on this in early May, the company appears to have changed the maximum allowable duration to 90 seconds rather than 60 seconds. VAST tags are no longer supported.
Monday, July 13
“Consumers simply don’t have the attention span they once had.” Writing for Podnews today, DAX US’s Brian Conlon suggests this is a myth waiting to trip up the unwary marketer: and, in fact, the data points to consumers just making choices on where to direct their attention.
A podcast app that removes advertising, ZeroAds, has measured the ads in 60,000 episodes submitted by their users. The median, the company says, is 4.3 minutes of ads per episode - 10.2% ads. But some shows are significantly more. All measured using at least 25 different episodes, iHeart’s Handel On The Law is 44% ads; iHeart’s Covino & Rich is 36.7% ads; iHeart’s Dear Chelsea is 36.6% ads; and iHeart’s The Ben Maller Show is 35.1% ads. (There’s something linking all four of those and we can’t think what it is.)
- Data in Podscribe - and our own tests - suggests that ZeroAds is significantly over-estimating the number of ads in podcasts. That’s unsurprising, given it’s trying to promote its product: but even Podscribe suggests that these four shows consist of more than 20% ads.
Megaphone switches to using Spotify Ad Server from Friday. Since we reported on this in early May, the company appears to have changed the maximum allowable duration to 90 seconds rather than 60 seconds. VAST tags are no longer supported.
✅There's More: HERE
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