Sounds Profitable

Winning on quality is only half the story when the audience you want is already spending its day somewhere else.
Written by Tom Webster
Edited and narrated by Gavin Gaddis
Find the full article here.

Today in the business of podcasting:
The IAB Tech Lab has opened a 30-day public comment period on version 2.3 of its Podcast Technical Measurement Guidelines, updating how downloads, audience, and ad delivery are counted across audio and video podcasts.
Digiday breaks down five lessons from the World Cup on creator marketing, including how Unilever scaled a creator network to roughly 300,000 and how Michelob Ultra generated $11.5 million in earned media value with fewer than 350 creators.
A Media, Built newsletter piece argues that employee-creator programs modeled on Starbucks' Green Apron Creators carry unpriced legal risk around copyright, overtime pay, and labor protections.
AdExchanger talks to OpenX's chief privacy officer about the end of "actual knowledge" standards in children's privacy law, as new state rules push platforms toward a "should have known" test for underage users.
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:
A new Nielsen Podcast Listen & Watch report finds audio remains the core of podcast consumption, with 90% of monthly listeners tuning in via audio and 62% also watching video, as listeners and viewers use the two formats in distinctly different ways.
WARC reports YouTube podcast viewing on TV screens has surged past 700 million hours monthly, up 70% year over year, even as the platform's ad revenue growth is projected to slow amid rising competition from TikTok and Netflix.
A new YouGov survey of U.S. podcast consumers finds genre preferences split sharply by gender, with men far more likely to listen to sports podcasts and women over-indexing in true crime, self-improvement, and wellness content.
Spotify's podcast strategy has shifted from paying for exclusive content to operating the infrastructure creators depend on for discovery and monetization, a repositioning that hands the company more market control with less financial risk.
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:
Tom Webster's latest Podcast Atlas installment examines podcast clips as a discovery engine, finding 89% of listeners watch clips on social platforms and roughly a third go on to become full-episode listeners.
DAX U.S. President Brian Conlon argues the "shrinking attention span" is a myth, pointing to Edison Research's Infinite Dial 2026 finding that 45% of Americans age 12 and older listened to a podcast in the past week, the highest level ever recorded.
Six Colors previews the iOS 27 public beta, including Apple Podcasts video expanding to macOS and Apple TV and a rebuilt Siri that can retrieve old podcast episodes by description.
Creator economy newsletter Scalable reports brand safety concerns among enterprise marketers have dropped from 50% in 2023 to just 10% in 2025, with the industry shifting focus to brand fit instead.
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:
Tom Webster's latest Podcast Atlas installment digs into podcast clips as the industry's discovery engine, finding that 89% of listeners watch clips on social platforms and roughly a third convert into full-episode listeners.
Amazon DSP adds Triton Digital as a programmatic partner, giving buyers access to Triton's global audio and podcast inventory paired with Amazon's first-party shopping and streaming data.
A new WARC Media report pegs YouTube's 2025 ad revenue at $40.4 billion, but growth is decelerating even as podcast viewership on the platform surges 70% year-over-year.
Digiday explores creators breaking into Hollywood with box-office hits and private equity backing, while flagging IP ownership as the ceiling on how far that crossover can go.
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.