Sounds Profitable

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**Sounds Profitable**

The pace of change the podcast industry is undergoing is staggering. The implications for podcasters, hosting providers, podcast listening app developers, and advertisers and agencies are enormous. And so is the growth potential. Presented as a companion to the weekly newsletter of the same name, our podcast provides you with direct access to our narrated articles, interviews with industry experts, bleeding-edge research, and can’t miss industry news recaps. That Sounds Profitable, right? Assumptions and conventional wisdom will be challenged. Easy answers with no proof of efficacy will be exposed. Because the thinking that got podcast advertising close to a billion dollars annually will need to be drastically overhauled to bring in the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars podcast advertising deserves.

Latest Episodes:

New Apple Podcasts HLS Host, Digital Audio's 2025 Consumer Spend, & More May 04, 2026

Show notes

Podcast Description

Today in the business of podcasting:

Bloomberg's Ashley Carman surveys the growing landscape of AI-generated podcasts, examining how hosting platforms like RSS.com are setting monetization guardrails and how Spotify is rolling out a new badge to authenticate real music artists.
John Spurlock's HLS Podcast Radar tracks video podcasts using the alternate enclosure tag, which several hosting platforms support but Apple Podcasts does not, as Buzzsprout announces that its video distribution to Apple Podcasts is out of beta and available to all users.
New PQ Media data shows digital audio recorded the fastest consumer spending growth rate among all media categories in 2025, even as audio overall ranks last in total spending out of the $2.4 trillion consumers spent on media content and technology.
A Scalable report examines the scale of creator-led media companies, including Beast Industries, which employs around 750 people and ranks among the less than 1% of U.S. companies with over 500 employees.

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.

American Podcast Audience Growth, Nielsen x Triton Digital, & More May 01, 2026

Show notes

This week in the business of podcasting:

Tom Webster of Sounds Profitable audited iHeartMedia radio stations across three mid-size U.S. markets and found that less than 4% of weekday airtime in Pittsburgh features locally produced content, while Indianapolis registers effectively zero. The research challenges the premise that a SiriusXM acquisition would meaningfully reduce local programming that, by most measures, has already disappeared.
New S&P Global Market Intelligence data shows podcast listening among U.S. online adults grew 10 percentage points in early 2026, reaching nearly 60% — a figure that aligns with Sounds Profitable's own Podcast Landscape 2025 research when video-only listeners are factored in.
Nielsen has integrated Triton Digital's Podcast Metrics Demos+ data into its Nielsen Media Impact planning platform, giving ad buyers a more complete picture of the podcast audience alongside other media channels for more precise campaign planning.
A new report from the Nigerian Podcast Index examines 329 shows across more than 20 hosting platforms and finds that while English-language content gives Nigerian podcasting global reach, the absence of local measurement infrastructure keeps the market largely invisible to international advertisers and investors.

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.

New Megaphone Flighting Tools, Thoughts on iHeart x SiriusXM, & More Apr 30, 2026

Show notes

Today in the business of podcasting:

Tom Webster audits iHeartMedia station clusters in Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and Salt Lake City and finds that locally originating programming makes up a tiny fraction of weekday airtime, while local advertising load remains far higher, reframing what a SiriusXM acquisition would actually affect.
Amplitude Media Partners' Reggie Risseeuw breaks down recent Megaphone ad server updates, including new Priority Pre-Book campaign tools and a mandatory geotargeting requirement taking effect July 14, 2026.
WARC projects advertisers will spend over $10.5 billion during the four weeks of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, reversing a spending decline from the 2022 Qatar edition, with Spotify expecting the tournament to drive significant content consumption across its platform.
Kirby Grines examines how the most valuable ad inventory is shifting away from exposure-based outcomes toward measurable results, with creators and rights holders building vertically integrated businesses to capture that value directly.

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.

Libsyn Video on Spotify, New Patreon Feeds, & More Apr 29, 2026

Show notes

Today in the business of podcasting:

Libsyn has announced that video functionality is now available across all its hosting plans, with direct video distribution to Spotify — powered by the Spotify Distribution API — starting at $25 per month.
Marketing firm JoneKiri is offering brand sponsorship opportunities for a live performance of Hanging with Doctor Z at Netflix Is a Joke Fest, with options ranging from organic product placement to full season four title sponsorship.
Patreon has launched a redesigned Home feed featuring Quips, recommended creators, and collaboration posts, with the company reporting that creator interactions boost fan engagement more than five times above baseline.
Bauer Media and Elevate Consultancy's Sound Check Europe 2026 study finds 86% of European advertisers now consider audio a core part of their media strategy, with 82% saying podcasts reach highly engaged audiences and 47% planning to increase podcast investment.
A new study from iHeartMedia and Omnicom finds audio advertising drives measurable lift across brand metrics, with long-form host-read ads delivering up to twice the recall of shorter spots.

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.

Nielsen Integrates Triton Digital Data, Spotify's Q1 Report, & More Apr 28, 2026

Show notes

Today in the business of podcasting:

Nielsen has integrated Triton Digital's Podcast Metrics Demos+ data into its Nielsen Media Impact planning platform, making it easier for advertisers to evaluate podcasts alongside other media channels with the same precision and comparability. Nielsen also launched Predictive Sales Lift, a new outcomes-based capability to help media buyers forecast sales lift for video ad campaigns on Nielsen One Ads.
Spotify's Q1 2026 earnings show continued growth across the board, with Premium subscribers up 9% year over year to 293 million, Monthly Active Users up 12% to 761 million, and total revenue reaching €4.5 billion — a 14% constant currency increase over 2025.
A new Precisify survey of 1,000 U.S. teens and Millennials finds YouTube is the one platform both generations share, reaching 83% of Gen Z respondents and 78% of Millennials, with nearly 45% of each group spending at least 30 minutes to an hour on the platform daily.
The Nigerian Podcast Index 2025 Report surveys 329 shows to map Africa's largest English-language audio market, finding the ecosystem heavily reliant on Spotify for Creators at 58% of indexed shows, with a persistent lack of audience data identified as the industry's key challenge.

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.

iHeartMedia and SiriusXM Merger Talks, S&P Global on Podcast Consumption, & More Apr 27, 2026

Show notes

Today in the business of podcasting:

iHeartMedia and Sirius XM are in preliminary talks about a potential merger that would combine the largest radio station owner and the largest satellite radio service in the United States, creating a company with more than $12 billion in combined annual sales.
S&P Global Market Intelligence data shows U.S. podcast listening grew 10 percentage points from Q1 2025 to Q1 2026, with nearly 60% of online adults now reporting they listen, a figure that aligns with Sounds Profitable's Podcast Landscape 2025 research when video-only listeners are factored in.
Spotify has launched new fitness features for free and Premium subscribers, including curated workout playlists and access to more than 1,400 on-demand Peloton classes, alongside a new Claude AI integration that delivers personalized recommendations based on users' listening data.
Spanish-language podcast platform iVoox has debuted what may be the first formal television ad campaign for a dedicated podcast app, developed by agency Drop&Vase and airing on Mediaset España channels in Spain.
European audio platform Audion has raised $15 million to fund its expansion into the United States, with investment going toward go-to-market operations, partnerships, and product development.

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.

SiriusXM Reps YouTube Audio Ads, New Podcast Audience Metric, & More Apr 24, 2026

Show notes

This week in the business of podcasting:

SiriusXM Media has become the exclusive audio advertising representative for YouTube in the United States, giving advertisers the ability to buy guaranteed audio ad impressions against YouTube audiences at scale for the first time through SiriusXM's combined ad technology stack.
Sounds Profitable's new Audio Primes report, drawn from The Podcast Landscape 2025, identifies the 22% of podcast consumers who listen to 75% or more of their shows as audio, and examines the measurement gap that arises when platforms track video while listeners are consuming audio.
Bumper co-founder Jonas Woost launched Bumper Score, a new third-party audience verification metric that rates podcast ad delivery on a scale of 0 to 200, aiming to give media buyers a standardized, comparable measure of whether ads are reaching real, verified listeners.
Content platform beehiiv has surpassed its Q2 goal for podcast signups by more than 10x and is expanding its feature set with a new AI-powered podcast data tool and a webinar hosting feature supporting up to 10,000 attendees.

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.

New beehiiv Podcast AI Integration, Bumper Score's Measurement Impact, & More Apr 23, 2026

Show notes

Today in the business of podcasting:

Sounds Profitable's new Audio Primes report finds that 22% of podcast consumers listen to 75% or more of their episodes as audio-only — and 90% of them use YouTube, making them heavier consumers of video platforms than the average podcast listener while still choosing audio for podcasts.
Beehiiv is expanding its creator platform with MCP-powered AI podcast analytics and a new webinar product that supports up to 10,000 attendees, positioning the platform as a full-stack destination for content creators beyond newsletters.
Bumper has launched Bumper Score, an independent audience verification tool designed to bring transparency and consistency to podcast advertising, with clients already directing over $500,000 toward ad buys enabled by the new metric.
A Barrett Media column uses Sounds Profitable's Podcast Landscape 2025 data to argue that podcasting's most engaged listeners tolerate high ad volume but will leave over irrelevant ads, making hyper-targeted and programmatic advertising essential to avoiding broadcast radio's mistakes.
Streamonomics author Hernan Lopez examines Netflix's $670 billion total addressable market estimate and compares it to the creator economy's projected TAM, which may exceed Netflix's figure when all creator platforms and direct creator revenue are included.

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.

SiriusXM to Rep YouTube Audio in US, New IAB Programmatic Council, & More Apr 22, 2026

Show notes

Today in the business of podcasting:

SiriusXM Media has become the exclusive audio advertising representative for YouTube in the United States, giving advertisers access to guaranteed impressions against YouTube's audio audiences at scale for the first time. The deal connects YouTube to SiriusXM's broad ad sales infrastructure, which already spans Pandora and a wide network of podcast and streaming inventory.
A new Radiocentre report, High Gain Audio, analyzed by WPP Media, finds that multiplatform audio advertising outperforms the all-media ROI average in both short-term and long-term campaigns. The report recommends that brands allocate up to 25% of total media spend to audio to maximize overall campaign ROI.
The IAB Tech Lab has launched the Programmatic Governance Council, a new industry body designed to align business expectations and technical standards across programmatic advertising. Founding participants include major buy- and sell-side organizations such as Dentsu, Omnicom Media Group, WPP, Disney, The Trade Desk, and Mediavine.
A growing number of content creators are launching their own in-house ad agencies, positioning them as faster and more platform-native alternatives to traditional intermediaries. Recent launches include Natalie Marshall's Expand Co-Lab and Max Reisinger's Camp Agency, part of a trend that Scalable traces back to Dhar Mann's Fifth Quarter in 2022.
David's Bridal has invested in a creator ambassador program called Style Squad, which enlists both external influencers and internal employees to produce shoppable content across social platforms. The program, launched in January 2026, allows participants to earn commission on sales they drive rather than receiving flat fees.

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.

Eyes Are Optional Apr 22, 2026

Show notes

What platforms record and what podcast consumers are actually doing can be two different things.

New research from Edison Research introduces "Audio Primes" — the 22% of podcast consumers who listen to 75% or more of their podcasts as audio — finding that this segment skews younger, more educated, and higher-earning than the average podcast listener, upending common assumptions about who chooses audio-first consumption. Ninety percent of Audio Primes use YouTube for podcast listening, but predominantly as audio infrastructure with screens off or minimized, revealing a significant gap between video platform metrics and actual podcast listening behavior.

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

Find the full article here on Sounds Profitable.

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