BBC rules out UK ads in podcasts

• After criticism from the UK podcast industry, the BBC has said it won’t press ahead with ads in podcasts in the UK, saying that it has “decided to rule out placing adverts around BBC licence-fee funded programmes on third-party podcast platforms in the UK.” The announcement is expected to be confirmed in the BBC Annual Plan next week. Independent podcasters had called the idea “disastrous”.

  • The BBC will still take some advertising in UK podcasts though; Podnews reported last week on a new BBC podcast which will contain ads inside the UK, but is not produced by the public service. The BBC is funded by advertising outside the UK.

• Exclusive: Frequency Ads has launched a new Premium Publisher Network for host-read ads. Partnering with DAX US, the service aims to make host-read ads as easy to buy as programmatic ads.

• Popular podcast app Pocket Casts is rolling out “smart folders” next week, which automatically groups shows together. You’ll see them in beta versions of the app now.

  • “Popular podcast app”? Find out quite how popular Pocket Casts is - next week, in the Podnews Report Card; Apr 2 9.00am on the Keynote Stage at Evolutions.

• In Portugal, Pod_Scope is a measurement service of podcasts in the country. It was unveiled on Mar 18, and has published a ranker for both January and February. (The ranker measures 4 or 5 complete weeks, rather than calendar months). The #1 podcast is extremely unpleasant (literally) - Extremamente Desagradável is produced by commercial radio broadcaster Renascença.

  • Pod_Scope calculates downloads via server logs using rules from an outdated version of the IAB Podcast Guidelines. It measures participating publishers only, hosted on either Triton Digital’s Omny Studio, or Bauer Media’s Podplay. The public broadcaster RTP is one of the publishers that is not taking part.

• Magellan AI has published February’s top podcast advertisers. Of the top 15 companies, only four increased their spend; February is a shorter month, which may be part of the reason.

• Simplecast and RedCircle announced a partnership earlier in the year for optimised ad insertion, claiming 21% improved ad delivery over traditional VAST integrations. It means podcasters hosting with Simplecast Professional can now find advertisers through RedCircle without switching hosting platforms. You can join the OpenRAP waitlist here.

• Should more podcasts go live? Dave Jones explains the benefits of live podcasting, and technical ways to achieve it.

• Libsyn has signed an advertising and hosting partnership for the 10% Happier with Dan Harris podcast. The show was with Wondery.

• Four big NBA players have been signed by sports podcast network Blue Wire. Dwight Howard, D’Angelo Russell, Penny Hardaway, and Victor Oladipo are all migrating their independent podcasts to Blue Wire’s platform.

• A US advertising self-regulator has warned about a failure of some social media influencers to properly disclose the commercial relationship with their advertisers. The same FTC rules apply in podcasting, too.

• The size of the global ad market has been downgraded by $20bn by WARC after trade tariffs and further uncertainty. The media data company had suggested that audio would grow by 2.1%; but now suggests that audio advertising might only grow by 0.4%.

• Are you in Indonesia or Malaysia? Do you have an Android phone with an account that’s registered in that country? We’d love to ask you a question about what you see in one of the Google apps, to help us with a story. Please could you hit reply and let us know if you’re in the country?

Tips and tricks - with Pod Predictor by Coleman Insights

• Headliner has published How (and Why) to Grow a Podcast on YouTube: 2025 Guide. True to form, the guide is also available as a video on YouTube.

Podcast News - with Airwave

New on Airwave: Planning your next vacation? Before you budget, learn how to get the most out of your travel dollars with NerdWallet’s Smart Travel. The show breaks down everything from frequent flyer points to Airbnb to help you upgrade your getaways.

Based on real-world events, Signal Lost is a brand new espionage thriller podcast, released today by Caloroga Shark Media. It follows the catastrophic consequences when highly classified military operations are compromised through a commercial messaging app.

Perhaps you’re flying to Chicago over the weekend, and want to find some new podcasts to listen to on the flight? Step forward New Podcasts, our feed of all the newest and most interesting shows out there, from the pages of Podnews. Got a podcast to tell us about? Head over here and let us know!