Sounds Profitable

This week in the business of podcasting:
SXSW will make podcasting a core pillar in 2027 with its first-ever four-day Podcast Festival, and Podcast Movement Evolutions returns to Austin that same week for two free days at the SKYBOX on 6th.
Sounds Profitable's Tom Webster argues podcasting's real gap is the lack of a default, as dedicated hardware fades and 57% of Americans aged 12 to 34 now live in homes with no radio.
Point-to-Point Marketing and Strategic Solutions Research announced the Podcast Study 2026, a listener research project on discovery, loyalty, and monetization that debuts at the Sounds Profitable Business Summit on September 14.
YouTube is redefining the "view" as an "engaged view," a change that runs about 7% lower across 300,000 podcast episodes and could reshape CPMs and sponsorship math for video podcasts.
To find links to these, and every article covered in this week'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:
SXSW will make podcasting a core pillar in 2027 with its first-ever four-day Podcast Festival, and Podcast Movement Evolutions returns to Austin that same week for two free days at the SKYBOX on 6th.
Sounds Profitable's Tom Webster argues podcasting's real gap is the lack of a default, as dedicated hardware fades and 57% of Americans aged 12 to 34 now live in homes with no radio.
YouTube is redefining the "view" as an "engaged view," a shift that runs about 7% lower across 300,000 podcast episodes and could reshape CPMs and sponsorship math for video podcasts.
Magellan AI released its first H1 2026 podcast advertising benchmarks for Ireland, showing 33% year-over-year spend growth, financial services on top, and a 5.71% average ad load.
Flightpath shipped Automation Playbooks to fight unreliable ad delivery, responding to an ad-tech platform change it says threatens publishers with revenue losses of up to 50%.
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:
The Podcast Academy opened submissions for the 2027 Ambies, spanning 23 show categories. This cycle adds Best Music Podcast, Episode of The Year, and a new Advertising category covering Best Ad Read, Best Branded Podcast, and Podcast Advertiser of The Year.
Triton Digital released its Australian Podcast Ranker for July 2026. Mamamia Out Loud held the top spot, Hamish and Andy placed second, and ABC News Top Stories cracked the top three for the first time.
The IAB updated its AI Transparency and Disclosure Framework with a standardized sparkle icon or text label for advertising where AI materially changes what consumers see or hear. The harder problem is keeping that disclosure attached to the creative as it moves through agencies, DSPs, ad servers, and publishers.
Buzzsprout reports more than 11,000 HLS video episodes are now live on Apple Podcasts. Among 562 established shows, median Apple Podcasts downloads rose 19 percent in the 28 days after a show's first HLS video episode.
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.

A nine-button Italian radio with a dead app can teach us some lessons about podcast discovery.
Written by Tom Webster
Edited and narrated by Gavin Gaddis"

Find the full article here.

Today in the business of podcasting:
Spotify says a bug, not a policy, made a podcast ad appear unskippable, telling Podnews the 15-second skip was hidden in the viral example and has since been fixed — and that skipping works for both Free and Premium listeners
YouTube changes how it counts a "view" starting August 24, registering a play from the very first frame while making the more meaningful "engaged views" metric private, cutting off third-party rankers and data companies
Point-To-Point Marketing and Strategic Solutions Research announce the Podcast Study 2026, a national effort on discovery, loyalty, and monetization co-sponsored by Crooked Media, NPR, and PRX, with findings due September 14-15 at the Sounds Profitable Business Summit
The Streaming Wars reports NFL insider Tom Pelissero, out at ESPN, has landed at both Netflix and Spotify-owned The Ringer, a case study in one institutional job splintering into several targeted assignments
A Magellan AI case study details how boutique network Rhapsody Voices used data-driven creator-sponsor matching to reach better than 80% sell-through on two priority shows as it scaled beyond manual research
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.