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Spotify 🔜 Apple Podcasts HLS, Podcasts Grab Ad-Avoiders, & More May 14, 2026

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Today in the business of podcasting:

Spotify has officially integrated five new hosting platforms into its video distribution ecosystem and announced that Spotify-hosted podcasts will gain support for Apple Podcasts' HLS video technology, enabling video distribution to Apple Podcasts without changing existing setups.
New research from Sound Insights finds that 79% of U.K. podcast listeners recall an ad heard in the past week, outperforming most media in a country where nearly half of adults cannot recall any brand advertising, with podcast ad recall among 18-to-34-year-olds surpassing broadcast TV.
RAJAR Q1 2026 data shows U.K. radio weekly reach growing slightly year over year at 87% of the population, with 27% of adults listening to podcasts each week and 11% of podcast listeners reporting no traditional radio consumption.
Streamonomics reports the top eight U.S. streamers posted a combined $9.8 billion in Q1 2026 profits, a 54% increase from 2025, while the Attention 20 index of top global attention economy companies reached $20 trillion in enterprise value.
Japan's inaugural PODCAST EXPO 2026 drew 12,713 attendees across two days in Tokyo, bringing together podcast creators, listeners, and industry professionals in what organizers describe as Japan's largest podcast festival to date.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

Amazon Music Video Podcasts, Magellan AI x Signal Hill Insights, & More May 13, 2026

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Today in the business of podcasting:

Amazon Music has launched video podcasts for U.S. users on iOS and Android, starting with its ART19 platform and using HLS video delivered via the open alternate enclosure RSS tag. Amazon is not charging creators or networks for access, with plans to expand to additional partners later this summer.
Magellan AI and Signal Hill Insights have partnered to deliver full-funnel podcast measurement by combining ad exposure data with brand lift studies, enabling more precise audience matching and a clearer read on how campaigns drive awareness, favorability, and purchase intent.
BBC Sounds reported a record Q1 2026, with 718 million total plays of radio, podcast, and music content — up 5% year over year — along with 265 million on-demand radio and podcast plays and 11 million signed-in accounts.
Streaming services including Prime Video, Netflix, Paramount+, and Disney+ have launched short-form video clip feeds that serve as recommendation engines for their longform content, in contrast to social platforms where short-form video tends to be original programming.
Heading into Upfronts week, ad buyers say the focus has shifted toward performance measurement and lower-funnel outcomes over reach and premium content, with brands expecting media buys to demonstrate concrete business results.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

In a Nation of Ad-Avoiders, One Medium Breaks Through May 13, 2026

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The upcoming 2026 UK Advertising Landscape Study finds podcasting breaks through baked-in ad avoidance in U.K. audiences.

A new Sounds Profitable UK Advertising Landscape Study finds that 47% of UK adults cannot recall a single brand from advertising they encountered in the past week, compared to 31% in the US, a gap the researchers attribute to the BBC's century-long commercial-free baseline shaping British listeners' expectations. Despite that structural resistance, 79% of UK podcast listeners recall an ad heard in the past week, a result the study frames as especially significant given how skeptical the UK audience is of advertising broadly. Among 18-34 year olds, podcast ad recall in the UK reaches 86%, edging ahead of broadcast TV's 83% for the same age group, a crossover the study says UK media plans have not yet caught up to. Podcast ad recall is also effectively gender-equal in the UK at 79% male and 80% female, a pattern the researchers describe as structural to the medium rather than a regional quirk.

Written by Ben Robins
Edited and narrated by Gavin Gaddis
Text and audio edited by Tom Webster

Find the full article here on Sounds Profitable.

iHeartMedia's Q1, Ranking Podcasts Like Records, & More May 12, 2026

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Today in the business of podcasting:

PRX's 2025 annual report shows the nonprofit leaning deeper into podcasting to navigate federal public media funding cuts, with Radiotopia launching 18 seasons and specials and drawing 47.3 million downloads across the network.
A new PodSEO analysis of 11 million keyword-ranking pairs on Apple Podcasts and Spotify finds both platforms still search like record stores, over-weighting keyword-stuffed show titles and fresh episodes in a pattern that disadvantages evergreen, host-driven content.
iHeartMedia's Q1 2026 earnings show podcast revenue up 26.9% year over year to $147 million, beating the company's guidance, while digital revenue excluding podcasting grew 12% to $180 million.
Media, Built examines two recent newsletter deals, Puck acquiring Air Mail and The Ankler moving from Substack to Passport, to argue that audience ownership rather than audience size is the defining asset in newsletter monetization.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

AI in Marketing Measurement, Golden Globes Podcast Eligibility, & More May 11, 2026

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Today in the business of podcasting:

Register for Trust and Attention: Why Sports Media Wins (And How Brands Prove It)
A new report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism finds that news podcast publishers are pivoting to video in response to audience demand and platform changes, while audience research shows that video and audio podcast consumers largely overlap. Publishers are also experimenting with hybrid revenue models — including live events, merchandise, and subscriptions — to supplement advertising income.
WARC's The Future of Measurement 2026 identifies three major trends reshaping advertising measurement: a shift toward outcomes-based approaches, the expanding role of AI in campaign analysis and planning, and the rise of "creative intelligence" tools that aim to predict ad performance before campaigns launch.
The IAB projects creator ad spend will reach around $44 billion this year, but the form of creator promotion is shifting — sponsored content is giving way to paid ads featuring creators directly, and third-party clipping networks are emerging as a new paid distribution strategy.
The New York Times reported Q1 2026 digital advertising revenue grew 31.6% year over year, with CEO Meredith Kopit Levien crediting the company's expanding content portfolio and identifying video as a key area of strategic investment.
The UK government has confirmed that podcasting and audio will be formally recognized within the Standard Industrial Classification 2026 framework, a milestone AudioUK says will reshape how podcast and audio businesses are defined, measured, and supported in the British economy.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

Apple Podcasts HLS Support Updates, UK TV vs. Podcast Reach, & More May 08, 2026

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This week in the business of podcasting:

Register here for the upcoming Trust and Attention: Why Sports Media Wins (And How Brands Prove It) webinar.
New data from the 2026 UK Advertising Landscape Study shows that podcasting reaches 60% of UK adults aged 18 to 34 monthly, surpassing broadcast TV's 57% reach in that demographic. Sound Insights' Ben Robins argues that for media planners targeting UK adults under 45 at scale, podcasting is no longer a niche option.
A case study from Transistor.fm co-founder Justin Jackson shows that Primary Technology, the first Transistor-hosted podcast to add Apple Podcasts HLS video, saw per-episode plays roughly double and engaged listeners climb from 707 to 1,072 after the switch, with no loss on YouTube or other audio platforms.
It was a busy week for Apple Podcasts HLS video adoption, with Buzzsprout bringing its video distribution out of beta for all users, Podigee launching one-upload video distribution across YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify for every plan tier, and Captivate announcing official Apple Podcasts HLS video support.
Starting in mid-July 2026, Megaphone will transfer campaign management to the Spotify Ad Server, enabling new ad formats including video while removing third-party VAST serving entirely. Pre-booking on the new system opens May 15, 2026.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

UK Podcast Ads Overtake TV, Apple Podcasts Video Impact, & More May 07, 2026

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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 and grew engaged listeners from 707 to 1,072, with no measurable cannibalization of the show's YouTube or audio-only audiences.
Radio station groups once expanded into local CTV sales by leveraging their existing relationships and advertiser trust — a move that never happened for digital audio, despite targeting and measurement that now rival video in quality.
The IAB projects U.S. digital video ad spending will reach $81.9 billion in 2026, an 11% year-over-year increase, with 54% of marketers shifting budget away from broadcast TV and 23% pulling from digital audio.
A new white paper from Magellan AI and True Native Media argues that adding podcasting to a broader audio plan extends reach into audiences that streaming audio alone cannot capture, because the two formats serve fundamentally different listening contexts.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

The Clipping Ecosystem, Evolving Upfronts with Creators, & More May 06, 2026

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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 audience in a given month.
AdExchanger Senior Editor Alyssa Boyle analyzes YouTube's NewFronts presentation, where creators blurred the traditional line between talent pitches and publisher sales decks, as advertisers increasingly demand outcome-based commitments over broad reach.
Consultant Steve Raizes explores how the weekly podcast production cycle traps creators on a content hamster wheel with no time for strategic growth, using Audiochuck's operational infrastructure as a model for sustainable scale.
Tribeca Festival 2026 announces its most ambitious podcast lineup to date for its June run in New York City, featuring live events with Radiolab, The New Yorker Radio Hour, and Lemme Say This, with guests including Peter Dinklage, Adam Scott, and Laurie Anderson.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

Podcasting Has Already Overtaken TV. Here’s the Proof May 06, 2026

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Guest writer Ben Robins analyzes new data from The 2026 UK Advertising Landscape Study.

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" podcast usage of any age group, at 16%. The findings challenge the conventional UK media planning framework that treats podcasting as a supplementary buy, suggesting it is already the primary option for brands targeting audiences under 45.

Written by Ben Robins
Edited and narrated by Gavin Gaddis
Text and audio edited by Tom Webster

Find the full article here on Sounds Profitable.

Podigee Video Podcast Support, Acast's Profitable Q1, & More May 05, 2026

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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 contributor Steve Allen draws on Tom Webster's analysis of the SiriusXM/iHeart deal to argue that local radio's most underleveraged asset is the quality of its advertising creative.
Nielsen data shows 77% of U.S. soccer fans use radio and podcasts for soccer content, with Millennials 41% more likely to consume World Cup coverage via podcasts than any other medium.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

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