Sounds Profitable

Today in the business of podcasting:
Acast acquires Backyard Ventures for $20 million, adding more than 200 premium creators across podcasts, YouTube, newsletters, and social to accelerate omnichannel monetization.
Spotify asks artists to disclose AI-generated music and will label AI artist identities as "AI Personas," excluding them from editorial and algorithmic recommendations beginning in mid-September.
The Media Leader asks seven industry specialists whether podcasting has hit saturation, and the consensus is that the medium is maturing, with ad spend still lagging consumption and discovery shifting to social platforms.
Signal Hill Insights analyzes how 4,819 Americans define the word "podcast," finding that only about 33 to 38% mention audio or listening while just 7% of listeners describe podcasts as video only.
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.

Register for Podcast Movement 2026
In this week's Sounds Profitable newsletter, Tom Webster breaks down the company's most ambitious week yet: five days taking over Terminal 5 in New York this September, running three different events for three different audiences under one roof. He walks through the Business Summit bringing the buy side and sell side of podcasting into one room, the official IAB Podcast Upfront after party, and the reimagined Podcast Movement creator days at just $199 for two full days in Manhattan. Along the way he makes the case for why not a single minute of stage time is for sale, how the partners underwrite it all, and the small idea he's proudest of, a four o'clock block built for the person who doesn't already know everyone in the room.
Written by Tom Webster
Edited and narrated by Gavin Gaddis"

Find the full article here.

Today in the business of podcasting:
With the Premier League banning front-of-shirt gambling sponsorships from the 2026/27 season, Sport Social's Ryan Barker argues official team and fan podcasts are the natural landing spot for betting brands, pointing to a Sky Bet partnership across 20 football podcasts that reached more than one million listeners.
Bumper co-founder Dan Misener explains why Apple Podcasts play counts are inflated: Apple counts every tap of the play button, not every listener, making the metric impossible to compare with Spotify plays or YouTube views.
iHeartMedia reported Q2 2026 podcast revenue up 20.7% year over year to $162 million, now 16.5% of total company revenue, alongside a new video podcast deal bringing shows to Disney+ and Hulu.
Magellan AI's Q2 2026 Podcast Advertising Quarterly Benchmark Report finds podcast ad revenue up 23% year over year, with average ad load rising to 8.75% of runtime, or roughly five and a half minutes of ads per hour.
YouTube is doubling its Partner Program requirements effective February 1, 2027, raising qualified watch hours from 4,000 to 8,000 and Shorts views from 10 million to 20 million, raising the cost of entry for podcasters leaning on video.
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.

Today in the business of podcasting:
Sounds Profitable's Ask a Marketer webinar on August 18 brings Right Side Up's Krystina Rubino and Quo's Tori Murray together with Tom Webster to break down The Podcast Atlas, a survey of 5,061 U.S. consumers on how creator-based advertising performs across audio, video, social, and newsletters. The two buyers sort which research findings actually move a media plan.
The FCC voted 2-1 to repeal the 39% national TV ownership cap, clearing the way for broadcast station-group consolidation and shifting oversight to antitrust courts. Larger groups gain leverage in retransmission talks and more inventory for FAST channels and connected-TV advertising.
RSS.com launched a Max plan that publishes video podcasts to Apple Podcasts via HLS streaming with dynamically inserted programmatic ads from episode one. Creators keep 70% of ad revenue with no audience threshold, unlike YouTube's 1,000-subscriber and 4,000-watch-hour requirements.
Nielsen agreed to acquire media-verification company DoubleVerify for $2.15 billion in an all-cash deal at $13.60 per share. The combined company spans TV, streaming, digital, social, mobile, and audio measurement with more than $4 billion in annual revenue.
The ANA, the 4As, and the IAB are aligning for the first time in nearly a decade on AI governance, retail media standards, and workforce development, culminating in an Industry Leadership Summit this October. The group's AI-governance and measurement work could shape standards that reach audio advertising.
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.

This week in the business of podcasting:
Spotify is testing "Skip Ahead," a one-tap ad-skipping tool for Premium subscribers, and the industry is pushing back over what it means for host-read sponsorships and advertiser attention reporting.
Acast has opened video publishing on Apple Podcasts to all creators on its platform, after beta shows saw an estimated 25% increase in weekly Apple Podcasts sessions.
A coalition of 18 U.K. media organizations is urging the government to reject advertising on BBC podcasts, citing an estimated £10 million in annual revenue against the harm to independent audio businesses.
The IAB released "Measuring Visibility in the AI Era," a framework sorting AI search visibility metrics into four categories as more than 20 vendors sell competing tools with materially different 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.