Buzzsprout’s new Podcast Starter Kit helps new podcasters turn their ideas into shows.

Many new podcasters know what they want to talk about. But they hesitate when it’s time to name their show and describe it to potential listeners. Those early decisions can keep them from recording their first episode.

The Podcast Starter Kit helps them make those decisions. Podcasters answer five questions about their idea, then choose from titles, descriptions and cover designs created for their show. They can use their own title and edit the description to sound like them.

When they finish, their show has a name, a description, categories and cover art saved in their Buzzsprout account. With those decisions made, starting a podcast can feel more manageable.

The Podcast Starter Kit costs $1 and is available when setting up a new podcast on the Buzzsprout website.

The registrations come from 52 countries and territories, across the event's four languages: English (350), French (320), Spanish (180) and German (150). About half of the shows registered so far were not registered for the 2026 edition. They heard about Podcasthon through direct outreach, social networks and word of mouth. They are all featured on our 4 websites, one per language.

“A charity rarely gets 30 minutes or more of anyone's full attention, and a podcaster can give it exactly that. Our job now is to make Podcasthon last, which is why the new partners joining us this year matter so much.” - Jeremie Mani, co-founder and co-president of Podcasthon

Several new partners have joined Podcasthon this year. They will be announced one by one in the coming weeks. The event is run by a small team and volunteers, and it is also looking for sponsors to help secure its future.

Registration is free and remains open: a podcaster can sign up as long as they can publish their episode by 19 March 2027, at https://www.podcasthon.org/register

The 2026 edition drew more than 2,800 registered podcasts from 65 countries.

Today, AdsWizz expanded access to its video podcast monetization capabilities for Apple Podcasts to publishers and creators, following early testing with select publishers. Powering one in four ads across the global open ecosystem and monetizing more than 1.3 trillion impressions across streaming and podcasting over the past decade, AdsWizz combines greater audience reach, premium advertiser demand, and industry-leading monetization technology in one unified solution. Now, publishers and creators can seamlessly distribute and monetize podcast video on Apple Podcasts, unlocking new revenue opportunities while maintaining control over their content and advertiser relationships.

As audiences engage with podcasts across listening and viewing experiences, AdsWizz is extending its powerful audio advertising technology to help creators monetize every moment with an audio-led strategy, regardless of how their content is consumed. AdsWizz enables creators to extend existing audio advertising campaigns into video by pairing audio ads with branded companion banners, without requiring new video ad production. Podcasters will be able to use AdsWizz’s best-in-class podcast monetization network to access advertiser demand, dynamic ad insertion, and measurement. Via Simplecast analytics, creators will have visibility into how audiences engage with their content across formats, helping inform their distribution and monetization strategies.

“For more than 15 years, AdsWizz has served as an operating system powering the open audio ecosystem, connecting creators and publishers with advertisers at scale,” said Anne Frisbie, Group Vice President, Global Supply at AdsWizz. “With this solution, we are giving podcasters and video-first creators a new way to reach audiences on Apple Podcasts and monetize those audiences. We’re also giving advertisers one access point to premium podcast inventory that is easier to buy, with the measurement advertisers expect from digital media.”

This solution reinforces AdsWizz’s commitment to powering the open podcast ecosystem, bringing together flexible monetization and advanced advertising technology to help creators and publishers grow their businesses on their own terms while giving advertisers more ways to reach and engage audiences wherever they are.

The winners of the fourth edition of the Independent Podcast Awards were announced last night during a sold-out ceremony at Kings Place in London.

‘Great Days Out on the Bus from Buxton’ was named the overall Independent Podcast of the Year, after also winning the Best Travel & Adventure and Best Artwork categories and being Highly Commended in the Best Regional category.

The awards were co-founded by Verbal Diorama and whynow in 2023 to celebrate those podcasts made in backrooms, in their creator’s spare time and without the pressures of upsetting sponsors along the way. In August, YouTube were announced as Headline Partners for this year’s awards and as part of the partnership, Head of MediaCo and Responsibility Partnerships for YouTube UK, Mairi Brewis, announced the overall winner.

With a total of 28 categories, including three new ones for 2026 (Best Regional Podcast, Best Personal Stories Podcast, and Best Limited Series), the awards celebrated a huge range of talented indie creators. More than 400 people from the indie podcasting community gathered in a sold-out ceremony in London to find out who had won one of the coveted trophies.

‘Great Days Out on the Bus From Buxton’ was a stand out show on the night, taking home two category awards and the overall Independent Podcast of the Year title. The show is solo produced by Maria Passingham, with award-winning artwork from Savannah Storm.

‘War Hall: A Theatre of the Mind’ was also announced as the Runner-Up, after winning the Best Arts & Culture and Best Music categories. It is the first podcast to receive the accolade, showing the continued quality of independent podcasting in the UK and Ireland.

The judges said of ‘Great Days Out on the Bus From Buxton’: “This is a remarkable podcast. It is so hyper local and yet so completely immersive. The host is instantly charming, open and natural. Great Days Out is also a massive argument for the audio format. The soundscapes created felt truly authentic, the audio paints the picture in your head - you feel like you're on the bus, in the field, in the pub alongside Maria. Many people underestimate the work required to create a podcast of this quality, and of this nature. This is exceptionally pure and so very well done. Congratulations!”

The show will see its name up in lights on billboards in Leicester Square from Thursday 5th thanks to the team at Spotify.

St Ermin’s Hotel have also given the winner a recording session in their brand new podcast studio in Westminster, including an overnight stay and dinner at the hotel.

All the winners

Podcasts Detail

• Independent Podcast of the Year: Great Days Out on the bus from Buxton
• Best Arts & Culture Podcast: War Hall
• Best Books Podcast: The Failing Writers Podcast
• Best Branded Content Podcast: The Creative Life Story Work Podcast
• Best Business & Culture Podcast: The Factory Next Door
• Best Children & Young Adults Podcast: Dexplorers
• Best Comedy Podcast: Leyline High Rewind
• Best Environment & the Natural World Podcast: BatChat
• Best Fiction Podcast: Spooky Story Time
• Best Films & TV Podcast: All The Right Movies
• Best Gaming Podcast: PastMaster: Reshaping History
• Best History Podcast: Mag Hags
• Best Horror & The Supernatural Podcast: How Haunted?
• Best Lifestyle Podcast: A Dose of Wellbeing: The Pharmacist Support Podcast
• Best Limited Series Podcast: The Secret Life of Songs
• Best Music Podcast: War Hall
• Best News & Politics Podcast: The Trawl
• Best Parenting Podcast: Neuroshambles
• Best Personal Stories Podcast: Still Life
• Best Regional Podcast Podcast: Highlands Reimagined
• Best Science & Technology Podcast: Somewhere on Earth: The Global Tech Podcast
• Best Self Improvement Podcast: The Lighting Fires Podcast
• Best Sex, Love & Relationships Podcast: Come Curious
• Best Sport Podcast: Grand Pricks
• Best Travel & Adventure Podcast: Great Days Out on the bus from Buxton
• Best True Crime Podcast: The Overturn
• Best Video Podcast: Prash’s Murder Map: True Crime Podcast
• Best Podcast Artwork: Great Days Out on the bus from Buxton
• Best Podcast Jingle: Garlic & Pearls

Immersive production comes first because it is the hardest spoken-audio problem there is: several people, moving, in real rooms and locations, kept in sync with cameras. A pipeline that solves it also handles podcasts and interviews, and it produces what voice AI lacks today: real speech in real rooms, with a record of who spoke, when, and where.

Nomono will demonstrate the workflow live today at Immersive Warsaw, in a Dolby Atmos cinema, for an audience of immersive creators, production companies, and technology vendors. An alpha program with a hand-picked group of immersive producers, educators, and software makers is already under way.

Video caught up. Audio is now the bottleneck.

For a decade, immersive production has been driven by the picture: better and cheaper 360 and spatial cameras, mature codecs, and editing in tools like DaVinci Resolve. Audio integration has not kept pace. A typical shoot records an ambisonics sound field plus a lavalier mic on each person, but none of those files say anything about positions or audio scene structure.

Editors cut on flat, essentially mono audio. Sound engineers then often spend two days per production placing, denoising, and leveling every voice by hand, and redo parts of the spatial mix whenever the picture edit changes. Video-based tracking, the only semi-automatic option, is often slower than working by hand and adds a heavy CPU load to 8K and 16K projects.

Listeners notice: when a voice sits in the wrong place, or the reverb doesn't match the room on screen, viewers sense something is off and immersion is broken, even if they don't realize what made them drop out of the story.

Automating the realism layer

Nomono Labs does this groundwork automatically, so engineers can spend their budget on story and emotion. Five products (Separation, Enhancement, Spatialization, Analysis, and Delivery) run on the same processing chain already behind every Nomono Studio recording. They isolate and clean each voice to broadcast loudness standards, measure each speaker's position from the ambisonics recording and follow them as they move, and report who speaks when. Outputs include processed and unprocessed files per mic, stereo and binaural mixes, and spatial audio master files that open directly in video editing tools like DaVinci Resolve or DAWs like Pro Tools.

Labs works with recordings from third-party gear, not just Nomono's own Sound Capsule. At launch it accepts any lavalier kit alongside a Sennheiser AMBEO or Zoom H3-VR ambisonics microphone, with more arrays to follow. No other service automatically tracks speakers in a sound field, and Nomono holds granted patents on both known methods for doing so.

The chain is proven on real productions, from a Nomono recording to EBU ADM, through the Orbit authoring tool, to IAMF on the Esfera platform. Because positions arrive as standard ADM metadata, they also drive sound design: Nomono's ADM output works seamlessly with tools like Sound Particles, turning a day of manual foley work into minutes.

No audio pipeline required

With Labs, developers and AI agents get this processing without building an audio pipeline of their own. Developers send recordings to a plain HTTPS and JSON API and get finished files back. The MCP server gives the same capabilities to AI agents such as Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor, so anyone can ask an agent to clean up a full shoot, deliver a track per speaker, or prepare a transcription-ready file, one recording or a whole batch at a time.

"We built this chain for our own hardware and run every Studio recording through it," said Jimmy Brodd, VP Engineering, Nomono. "Opening it up means any recorder, any lav kit, and any AI agent can use the same engine, and every improvement reaches all of them at once."

Teaching machines to hear the real world

The same engines will extend to post-production tools, archives, and transcription and voice-AI products. The larger opportunity is machine hearing. Most speech models are trained on synthetic data: clean speech with simulated noise and rooms added on top. Real conversations happen in real places, with reflections, overlap, and movement that simulations only approximate, which is why a voice assistant can still mishear someone on a busy street.

Nomono takes a deliberately contrarian position: models built on real-world speech in real-world places will outperform models built on approximations. Its technology captures not just a voice but its room, who spoke when, and where. That structured picture helps devices and AI understand who is speaking and where, with applications from healthcare and robotics to the smart home.

"The industry is betting that models will learn to hear through bad audio on their own," said Kristine Snyder, CEO of Nomono. "We think the better bet is to understand real voices in real rooms. Immersive production is where we prove it."

Availability

Nomono Labs is available now as an alpha program for a limited group of partners. Each partner is onboarded by hand, and processing is free during the alpha. Pricing will be usage-based, per processed minute and per product, and will be set with alpha partners before commercial launch. Producers and developers can visit http://www.nomono.co/platform-alpha to learn more. API and MCP documentation is now available at https://platform.nomono.co/docs/api/introduction/. Next on the roadmap: per-product jobs, Eclipsa and Apple ASAF export, more supported microphones, and expanded metadata.

Where do the stories told by Brazilian narrative podcasts take place? And where are the teams responsible for telling them based? To explore these connections, Lunar—the Narrative Podcast Laboratory at Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ)—is launching its latest initiative: the Narrative Podcast Map. The tool is integrated into the laboratory’s digital catalogue, which brings together more than 200 podcasts in the genre.

The map can be explored through two lenses: the narrated territory, referring to places central to the stories, and the production territory, which shows the places connected to how the programmes are made. By selecting a point, visitors can find the podcasts associated with that location and access their profiles in the catalogue. These profiles bring together available information about the programmes, seasons, teams, sources and listening options. The initiative is coordinated by Professor Andriolli Costa, PhD (UERJ).

Comparing the two perspectives reveals differences in the distribution of the connections recorded in the catalogue. In the data published on November 2, Brazil’s North region appeared as a narrated territory in 14 programmes, while only two had documented production ties to the region.

In the Southeast, meanwhile, 70 programmes featured stories set in the region, while 159 programmes had production ties there. Because the figure reflects different types of connections to the territory, including those of production companies and hosts, it indicates a concentration of the links recorded in the catalogue. 

This is also reflected in the recurrence of production companies: Rádio Novelo (16), Folha de S. Paulo (11) and Agência Pública (11) account for 38 production credits across the catalogued programmes—a figure equivalent to nearly 20% of the 201 programmes recorded. A single programme may have more than one production company.

From the list to the map

The project grew out of the catalogue launched by Lunar in 2023, initially featuring 40 Brazilian narrative podcasts. By September 2025, the collection had reached 100 programmes and had begun accepting public recommendations through an online form.

Besides contributing to the preservation of the field’s history, the catalogue was intended to give audiences a glimpse of the medium’s possibilities. The subjects covered, funding initiatives and distribution of roles within production teams are among the details compiled.

As the catalogue expanded, the laboratory began using artificial intelligence to support data organisation, field standardisation and profile editing. The team remains responsible for establishing the criteria, checking sources and deciding what to publish. The references consulted are recorded in each profile.

Among the themes represented in the collection, politics and human rights appear in 50 programmes, about 25% of the total. Life stories and true crime follow, with 42 podcasts each, closely followed by history-related projects, with 41. Because categories can overlap, a programme may be associated with more than one subject.

The survey points to an interest in subjects that require context and interpretation, creating space for in-depth storytelling about events and people.

The map

The map offers a new way to explore the collection. In addition to searching for a podcast by name or characteristics, visitors can start with a region and discover which programmes are associated with it.

Users can switch between narrated and production territories, explore Brazil’s regions and consult records linked to locations abroad. They can also search by podcast, person or production company.

The data is continually updated. An area with few points does not necessarily have little production: it may indicate that some programmes have yet to be identified or that information about their territorial connections is still being researched. Members of the public can contribute to the project through the recommendation form available in the catalogue.

Explore the Narrative Podcast Map and discover the Lunar catalogue.

Editor's note: this has been translated from the original Japanese

Japan is one of the fastest-growing podcast markets in the world on Apple Podcasts, with listener growth in 2026 outpacing the global average by nearly nine times. At the same time, it is decentralizing and diversifying, with more than four in five new shows coming from independent and non-traditional creators.

In Japan's accelerating podcast market, Apple Podcasts today launches "Creators We Love" in Japan for the first time. The program introduces listeners to the creators who deserve the spotlight right now, and celebrates their talent and appeal. With "Creators We Love," the Apple Podcasts editorial team curates and celebrates podcasters who are changing the way stories are told and shared. The program has spotlighted incredible voices across the US, UK and Canada. 

For this milestone launch in Japan, four creators and groups are featured: Ryunosuke Fukai, Kiyonori Higuchi and Yang Ruizhi of [Coten Radio](Coten Radio). Sakiko Hirano of 味な副音声 ～voice of food～. Ren Emma of サイエントーク Scientalk. And Kei Tanaka and Kensuu (Kentaro Furukawa), known for VALTURE RADIO and 限界突破ライフハック Genkai Toppa Life Hack. Selected as creators who are leading their eras and genres, they are introduced through Apple editors' curated picks of what makes their shows fun and what makes the hosts so appealing. The feature page also includes original photography shot by Apple exclusively for this program. It offers something for longtime podcast listeners and newcomers alike, with new shows and creators to discover. 

To commemorate the launch in Japan, Apple Podcasts and Today at Apple will also host a special event, “Talk: Experience the World of Podcasts Live with Top Creators."

This stage brings together two popular shows, Genkai Toppa Life Hack and COTEN RADIO. The creators will share why they started their shows, what goes on behind the scenes, and what podcasting means to them. It's a rare chance to connect with the creators in person and feel the energy of a live event up close. 

On the occasion of this launch, Ben Cave, Head of Apple Podcasts, said: "Apple Podcasts in Japan is seeing strong momentum in 2026, with double-digit growth in both audience and plays. Japan’s podcast creator ecosystem is expanding rapidly, highlighted by an over 70% year-over-year increase in new Japanese show launches.  We are thrilled to launch Creators We Love at such an exciting moment for podcasting in Japan, and to shine a spotlight on these incredible local creators.”" 

Apple Podcasts will continue to be a bridge between creators and listeners, delivering high-quality content that moves people through the power of audio. We invite you to check out Apple Podcasts and find your next favorite show.

Overview Creators We Love

"Creators We Love" is an exclusive Apple Podcasts initiative that recognizes and celebrates standout podcasters who are driving culture and defining their genres. First launched in the US in 2023, the campaign has expanded globally and now makes its debut in Japan, aiming to further elevate and energize the broader podcast industry.

Users in Japan can see the feature page here

Overview Special Event

Join Apple Podcasts and Today at Apple for a special session celebrating Japan's first "Creators We Love" campaign. Featuring a unique collaboration between two popular shows, Genkai Toppa Lifehacks and COTEN RADIO, the creators will discuss the origins of their podcasts, behind-the-scenes production stories, and their thoughts on audio storytelling. Experience the passion and intimacy of live podcasting firsthand.

Event Title: Talk: Experience the World of Podcasts Live with Top Creators

Speakers: Kei Tanaka & Kensuu (Kensuke Furukawa) (Genkai Toppa Lifehacks), Kiyonori Higuchi & Ruizhi Yang (COTEN RADIO)

Date & Time: Friday, November 13 | Doors open at 5:30 PM / Starts at 6:00 PM

Venue: Apple Marunouchi

Register for this event here

October's rankings reveal notable shifts in podcast consumption and advertising investment. Crime Junkie and The Daily continue to lead in audio reach. On the publisher side, Spotify maintains its lead across both rankings, while iHeartMedia sees significant growth in monthly plays. Among advertisers, Quince claims the top spot in estimated podcast ad spend, and SimpliSafe makes a notable move up the rankings.

Top Podcasts: Crime Junkie Maintains Its Lead

Crime Junkie continues to dominate podcast audio reach with approximately 16.4 million listeners, followed by The Daily at 8.7 million. Pod Save America (5.0M) and The Joe Rogan Experience (4.7M) each climb one position to #3 and #5, respectively, while NPR News Now jumps three spots to #4 with 4.8 million in audio reach.

Meanwhile, This American Life (#8, 1.2M) and The Daily (#10, 1.2M) enter the top 10 for plays per episode.

In total monthly plays, the top three remain unchanged:

• #1: The MeidasTouch Podcast — 61.2M
• #2: The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett — 48.1M
• #3: The Daily — 39.1M

Rumble also makes a notable appearance in October's rankings, with Louder with Crowder (#8, 20.6M) and The Dan Bongino Show (#9, 20.0M) entering the top 10 by monthly plays. The majority of consumption for both shows comes from Rumble, highlighting the importance of measuring podcast audiences across audio and video platforms.

Top Publishers: Spotify Holds the Lead as iHeartMedia Gains Momentum

Spotify continues to lead both publisher rankings, reaching 69.1 million in audio reach and 304.4 million monthly plays in October.

SXM Media climbs to #2 in audio reach with 45.7 million, following a 17% increase.

One of the largest gains comes from iHeartMedia, which jumps three positions from #9 to #6 in monthly plays. The publisher records a 63% increase to 177.4 million monthly plays, marking a significant month-over-month gain.

NPR also sees growth across both metrics, moving up one position to #7 in audio reach (22.0M). The publisher additionally enters the top 10 for monthly plays at #10, following an 8% increase to 99.3 million.

These movements highlight continued competition among major podcast publishers as audiences consume content across an expanding mix of platforms.

Top Advertisers: Quince Claims #1 as SimpliSafe Sees Rising Investment

Quince took the top spot among podcast advertisers in October, increasing estimated ad spend by 23% to \$6.7 million.

Shopify and BetterHelp also move up the rankings, each gaining one position to #3 (4.7M) and #4 (4.4M), respectively, despite a decline in estimated spend for Shopify.

DraftKings returns to the top 10 at #10, with an estimated \$2.6 million in podcast ad spend, representing a 4% increase from the previous month.

Among rising advertisers, SimpliSafe records the largest dollar increase in estimated spend, adding \$1.2 million in October. This growth brings its estimated investment to \$3.4 million, placing the home security brand at #7 on the overall top advertisers chart.

October's results reflect continued investment from established podcast advertisers alongside brands increasing their presence in the channel.

Explore Podscribe's October 2026 Rankings

Podscribe's monthly rankings provide visibility into podcast audience reach, consumption, publisher performance, and estimated advertiser spending. By tracking trends across audio and video platforms, the rankings help advertisers, agencies, and publishers better understand the evolving podcast landscape.

Explore the full October 2026 rankings:

• Top Podcasts [https\://podscribe.com/podcast-rankings/october-2026]
• Top Publishers [https\://podscribe.com/top-publishers/october-2026]
• Top Advertisers [https\://podscribe.com/top-advertisers/october-2026]

About Podscribe

Podscribe is an independent, IAB-certified omnichannel advertising measurement platform helping advertisers, agencies, and publishers measure, verify, and optimize advertising performance. With solutions spanning podcasts, streaming audio, radio, YouTube, CTV, and other digital channels, Podscribe provides actionable insights to help brands make smarter advertising decisions.

Learn more at www.podscribe.com or contact us at marketing@podscribe.com.

The Podcast Show London returns for its sixth year following record numbers in 2026, and continues to grow as the standout international date on the calendar for the podcast industry, with this year’s show seeing 6000+ attendees from 50 different countries.

Since its 2022 launch, the power of the podcast community coming together at the event has rapidly grown to become truly unstoppable.  Creators, executives, and innovators travel from every corner of the world to The Podcast Show London to meet, connect, and make big things happen. 

With over 180 sessions across 10+ stages, The Podcast Show London’s content programme continues to grow. The show features one of the industry's broadest speaker line-ups, giving delegates access to the people in the business of podcasting.  In 2027 The Podcast Show will host over 500 speakers drawn from every corner of the ecosystem, from leading executives from the biggest platforms and companies to established creators, brand decision makers and more, delivering panels, fireside conversations and keynotes.

Recent editions have featured familiar faces such as James Corden, Louis Theroux, Gary Lineker, Fearne Cotton, Ashley Flowers, MrBallen, Piers Morgan, Anthony Scaramucci, David Dimbleby, Toni Lodge & Ryan Jon Dunn, Emily Maitlis, Mo Gilligan, Lulu, and Katherine Ryan alongside Olivia Attwood, Elizabeth Day, Zoe Ball & Jo Whiley, Gabby Logan, Alice Levine, Elis James & John Robins, Cush Jumbo OBE, Roman Mars, Dr Rangan Chatterjee, Dan Schreiber & Andy Murray, Ed Gamble, Rylan Clark and Kirsty Young.

The Podcast Show London 2027 will bring, for the first time to the event, a new Creator Economy Zone, which will open the doors to the wider creator economy, recognising the shift and merging of the audio and video creator economies, providing a dedicated space for the industry to meet the creators driving it.  Alongside returning stages including Brand Works, focused on the brands & advertising sector, the show is also announcing an entirely new key stage, focused on video.  

The hugely successful Creator Village at the show will be further enhanced with a new dedicated Podcast Skills Stage hosting practical workshops and masterclasses and will continue its existing show features including its flagship Creator Stage.

Building on the popularity of the Creator Advice Lab 2026, which saw hundreds of delegates getting one to one advice, The Podcast Show London 2027 introduces Meet The Industry, a new feature within the Lab that gives delegates direct access to industry leaders looking at career paths and development as well as advice on what comes next.

Due to growing demand, the show will also extend its expo floor into a new for 2027 Gallery Hall, continuing to showcase a wide range of over 120 international partners and exhibitors with businesses spanning every part of podcasting, with hosted entertainment suites overlooking the main show floor, booths and activations.

Over 5 years, The Podcast Show has welcomed delegates from more than 50 countries from around the world, making it one of the most internationally diverse gatherings in the podcasting calendar.  

With this year on year growth, The Podcast Show 2027 announces The International Business Exchange, which will host the top 10 attending countries for a series of individual country meet ups in one dedicated space across both days. The gatherings will focus on each specific territory hosting one of five meetups per day, giving delegates the chance to network with specific global markets.  The 2026 top 10 attending countries were USA, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Ireland, Sweden, Australia, Denmark, Canada and Italy.  This new series will provide opportunities to build high-value global partnerships right on the show floor.

As Islington becomes the number 1 destination for networking for the podcast industry in May, The Podcast Show is officially scaling up the opportunities to connect and do business across the whole week from Monday through Friday, transforming the experience into a Festival of Networking. Events will include the first ever TPS International Boat Party along the River Thames, official afterparties, social darts, creator pub hangouts, executive dinners, morning run clubs, wellness sessions and cocktail hours.

‘First Release’ best rate Day Passes are now on sale at: https://www.thepodcastshowlondon.com/explore-passes

Save up to 30% on final door prices.  First Release Prices start from only £65 (Silver Day Pass), £105/£179 (Gold Day or 2 Day Pass), £415 (Diamond 2 Day Pass). 

• Use PODNEWS10 for an additional discount from your friends at Podnews!

Rates increase from 9th February, so book early to secure the best price. Discounted Group (8+) rates are available. 

• Plus, flexible payment plans allow you to spread the cost, with a first Diamond Pass payment of £138.34 (followed by 2 payments of £138.33), a Gold 2-Day Pass payment of £59.66 (plus 2 payments of £59.67), a Gold Day Pass payment of £35 (plus 2 payments of £35), and a Silver Day Pass payment of £21.66 (plus 2 payments of £21.67).

Produced by AV Media & Events (AVME), a joint venture between SME London and GetOnMedia.

Video is reshaping how Australians consume podcasts according to PodPoll 26, Australia’s most comprehensive annual study into podcast consumption habits, released by podcast production house Deadset Studios and market research firmInsightfully. YouTube’s share of podcast consumption has climbed to 55% in the past year, Spotify’s share is steady (58%), while Netflix is now also used by Australians for podcast discovery.

Yet audio remains the preferred format overall. 60% of regular podcast consumers say they’d rather listen to a podcast than watch one, compared with 23% who prefer to watch and 17% who have no preference. Millennials are the most likely of any generation to prefer listening, while Gen Z is the most open to watching.

The data also shows format preference isn’t fixed. Among listeners who use video platforms to consume podcasts, 72% say they move between watching and listening, rather than sticking to one mode. Short-form video is reshaping discovery too: 43% of regular consumers, rising to 60% of Gen Z, say there are podcasts they only ever consume via social media clips.

“The audience has splintered and that’s actually good news if you plan for it,” says Deadset Studios Director Kellie Riordan. “We’re advising clients to think of video and audio as two distinct products with two different jobs — video drives discovery and your clips travel on social, but long-form listening is still where the deepest engagement happens. Producing for only one of those is leaving an audience, and a revenue stream, on the table.”

Insightfully Managing Director Leanne White says the generational and gender splits in the data should reshape how organisations think about platform. “It’s tempting to assume younger audiences are all video-first, but our data says otherwise. Gen Z men are actually more likely to prefer audio than Gen Z women. If you’re only building a strategy around video because you assume that’s what younger listeners want, you might be missing half your audience.”

Other key findings from PodPoll 26:

• Overall podcast consumption continues to climb, with 10.3 million Australians now regular monthly listeners, up from 47% to 50% of the population year-on-year

• 77% of listeners say they complete a podcast episode always or most of the time, regardless of format — a stickiness few other media can claim.• Millennials are podcasting’s power generation in Australia, with 71% of them consuming podcasts regularly

• The majority of podcast consumers say they actively seek out podcasts specifically because they don’t require a screen.

Ausha, the leading podcast marketing and growth platform, is extending automatic monetization to shows in every language hosted on its platform. Powered by SoundCast and already live for French-language shows, the feature lets shows with at least 5,000 downloads in the past 30 days earn ad revenue straight from their Ausha account, and keep 50% of what they generate.

Many podcasters have built a loyal audience but don’t have the time or the network to land advertising deals. Ausha already gives creators several ways to earn from their show, from running their own ad campaigns to raising funds from their listeners. SoundCast adds a fully hands-off option, where the ads come to them. Creators turn on monetization in a few clicks from their Ausha account, with no advertisers to contact and no campaigns to manage.

A partner built for the next generation of audio

SoundCast is more than an advertising intermediary. The company delivers over 3 billion ad impressions a month in the Americas, its largest region, with a dedicated US team based in New York. It builds its technology in-house and is Europe’s only independent supply-side platform (SSP) dedicated to audio, working with premium publishers such as the Le Figaro group. For podcasters, this means reaching US and global advertisers through the major buying platforms, including The Trade Desk and Google’s DV360, rather than relying on a generic ad marketplace.

Simple to use, with creators in control

Podcasters stay in control of what their listeners hear by excluding the ad categories that don’t suit their show. From there, SoundCast handles ad placement automatically, with earnings invoiced each month.

From audience growth to revenue

Ausha’s mission is to Amplify Your Voice, and that starts with growth. Podcasters use Ausha to get discovered organically through Podcast Search Optimization (PSO), and to reach new listeners with paid campaigns through Visibility Ads. Monetization is the natural next step. With SoundCast, creators everywhere can now turn the audience they’ve built into revenue, without taking time away from making their show.

We’ve made this decision because of the planned public sector strike, which affects a number of our speakers, partners and attendees.

Tickets: All tickets are valid for the new dates, and you don’t need to do anything. If you can’t attend, you can get a full refund by emailing info@soundwaves.ie

Awards: All shortlisted nominees remain in contention, and the final round of deliberations will proceed as planned with the original judging panel.

Accommodation: If you booked at the Woodlands or another hotel for next week, please contact it directly and they will assist.

We’re sorry for the disruption this causes, and we’re grateful to all our speakers, nominees, partners and attendees for their patience.

Audion, plateforme publicitaire spécialisée dans l'audio digital et portée par l'intelligence artificielle, publie avec YouGov une étude exclusive menée en septembre 2026 auprès de 1 000 Français de 18 ans et plus. Conduite également aux États-Unis, en Italie et au Royaume-Uni, l'étude dresse un panorama des usages : les moments d’écoute, les plateformes privilégiées et une frontière de plus en plus poreuse entre audio et vidéo. Ses résultats confirment que l'audio digital est devenu un média de masse, présent tout au long de la journée et sur tous les écrans.

Concernant les préférences d’écoute, YouTube s’impose comme la première plateforme d’écoute des Français : 61 % des auditeurs l’utilisent, devant Spotify (38 %), Amazon Music et Deezer (18 % chacun) et Apple Music (14 %). Un usage porté par les plus jeunes, puisque 58 % des 18-24 ans écoutent de l’audio sur YouTube, contre 25 % des 55 ans et plus.

Pour autant, rares sont ceux qui se limitent à une seule plateforme. Même parmi les utilisateurs de Spotify, 74 % écoutent également ailleurs. Cette circulation entre plateformes efface aussi de plus en plus la frontière entre les contenus audio et vidéo. Ainsi, 66 % des auditeurs utilisent souvent ou parfois une plateforme vidéo pour écouter, sans regarder l'écran. Et 58 % ont déjà commencé un contenu sur une plateforme pour le terminer sur une autre, que ce soit de l'audio vers la vidéo (28 %), de la vidéo vers l'audio (23 %) ou dans les deux sens (32 %).

Ces nouveaux réflexes ne sont pas propres à la France: 79 % des adultes américains, 74 % des Italiens et 72 % des Britanniques ont écouté de l’audio digital au cours du mois. YouTube domine aux États-Unis et en Italie, où l’écoute de plateformes vidéo sans regarder l’écran concerne respectivement 66 % et 64 % des auditeurs.

« Ces résultats montrent à quel point les usages audio se sont recomposés. L'écoute ne se définit plus par un support ou une plateforme, mais par un moment et une intention. Que deux tiers des auditeurs utilisent une plateforme vidéo sans regarder l'écran en est l'illustration la plus frappante. C'est une évolution de fond, que l'on observe de manière très cohérente en France, aux États-Unis, en Italie et au Royaume-Uni.  » - Julien Chevignon, CEO Europe de Yougov 

« L’audio digital est devenu un réflexe quotidien pour plus de 41 millions de Français. Et ces auditeurs ne se cantonnent plus à une plateforme ou à un format : au fil de la journée, ils passent de YouTube à Spotify, de la vidéo à l’audio. Pour les marques, il s’agit désormais de les retrouver partout où ils écoutent, et c’est précisément notre promesse chez Audion.» - Geoffrey Fossier, Global CMO d'Audion 

Crossover Media Group (CMG) has partnered withleadership expert, keynote speaker and author Dave Reggina and acquired an equity interest in his fast-growing and highly rated The No Snooze Podcast. The program, available on Apple, Spotify, YouTube and most other major podcast platforms, has been added to the expansive lineup of podcasts produced by and/or whose advertising sales are handled by CMG.

“The No Snooze Podcast is a compelling, engaging and inspirational program hosted by a personality who’s equally compelling, engaging and inspirational,” said Scott Calka, Crossover Media Group managing member.    “With his special blend of motivational leadership insights, uplifting personal-growth stories and practical health and fitness advice, Dave is poised to break out in the podcast universe.  Our new partnership underscores our confidence in his potential and is emblematic of an evolving model for our podcast business.”

“With The No Snooze Podcast, we’ve been building a community focused on getting up and getting after it -- delivering actionable tips and strategies through our and our guests’ experiences to inspire the way you set up and attack your day. Don't snooze on life; you only get one shot.”

Reggina’s diagnosis as a teen with Crohn's disease sparked his dedication to health, fitness and resilience.  He is the author of the book 30 Lessons to Lead: From Breakdowns to Breakthroughs and co-founded A.C.E. (Action Cultivates Excellence), a transformative personal and professional growth movement and community.  He also brings his leadership acumen to his role as a deputy commissioner of the town of Greenburgh -- among the 20 original towns in Westchester County, New York, when it was established 1788.

The inspiration behind The No Snooze Podcast began with a simple commitment by Reggina to wake early, eliminate excuses, and take action. Rising each morning between 4:15 AM and 4:45 AM, he began sharing short motivational videos on Snapchat, delivering his now-signature phrase, “No snooze, baby … come on!” accompanied by a recognizable rolling-finger gesture.  This personal commitment to discipline and accountability quickly evolved into a growing movement and ultimately The No Snooze Podcast, created and hosted by Reggina with longtime audio/visual producer Claudio Valenzuela playing an integral role in its production.

The launch advances SpotsNow's core mission: making it easier to book in the channel. SuperAgent is live now and free to use at spotsnow.io.

The Answers Have Always Been Scattered

Knowing who advertises where, what they spend, which reads work, and which inventory is open has meant piecing together spreadsheets, sales decks, and word of mouth. That slows down every buyer testing the channel and every seller trying to find the next advertiser.

“Podcast advertising has always run on information that's hard to synthesize across so many data points: who's spending, where, what's working, what ad load is high and what's open. SuperAgent is the first of its kind, an agent that actually knows this industry. Ask it anything, or ask it to build the plan for you, and it will put together a full campaign with the best-performing shows for your brand. One chat with SuperAgent can turn into significant ROAS.” - Cam Pritchard, Founder and CEO, SpotsNow

From One Chat to a Full Campaign Plan

Tell SuperAgent about a brand and it does the planning work on its own. It finds the best-performing shows that match the brand's audience, checks who already advertises on them, and returns a full campaign plan with benchmark pricing and estimated ROAS ranges. What used to take days of research and back-and-forth starts with a single conversation.

One Agent, Four Jobs

• Discover shows. Find the shows whose audiences fit a brand, and see who already advertises on them.
• Analyze spend. See which brands are buying podcast ads, where, and roughly how much, based on tracked advertiser activity.
• Optimize creative. Learn from the reads already running in a category, and what to change in your own.
• Uncover overlooked opportunities. Surface open inventory for buyers and likely advertisers for sellers.

Buyers can ask questions like "Which wellness brands advertise on comedy podcasts?" or "Build me a campaign plan for a skincare brand." Sellers can ask "Which brands are buying up my shows like mine that I could be contacting?"

Built for Both Sides of the Market

Brands and agencies use SuperAgent to plan and pressure-test a buy. Shows and networks use it to find advertisers and understand their own market. There is no setup, no seat license, and nothing to install.

Availability

SuperAgent is free and available now at spotsnow.io. Teams that want the same intelligence inside Claude or ChatGPT can also add the SpotsNow connector.

Creators are increasingly looking for ways to reach audiences across multiple platforms without adding to their production workloads. Flightcast's new offering removes the manual work traditionally associated with expanding distribution, allowing creators to seamlessly turn existing YouTube content into a presence on Spotify.

Rather than downloading, reformatting, and uploading videos individually, creators can connect their YouTube account to Flightcast, then select either individual videos, playlists, or their entire catalog, and automatically publish that content to Spotify. Once connected, future YouTube uploads are automatically syndicated to Spotify. 

Importantly, this creates an opportunity for creators to generate additional revenue from content they've already produced.

“YouTube creators are sitting on years of video that could have a second life on Spotify.” said Rox Codes, Co-Founder and CEO of Flightcast. “Spotify now pays video creators a share of premium subscription revenue through the new Spotify Partner Program. As a result, there’s a lot of appetite for good video content, and potentially massive untapped revenue for these creators.”

The new offering is designed to simplify the process of bringing video content to Spotify, with features including:

• Full catalog migration: Publish an entire YouTube video library, selected playlists, or individual videos directly to Spotify.
• Automatic syndication: New videos published to YouTube are automatically distributed to Spotify.
• Platform-specific formatting: Titles, descriptions, thumbnails, chapters, and links are automatically adapted for Spotify.
• Additional monetization opportunities: Expand the revenue potential of existing video content through distribution on Spotify and the Spotify Partner Program.
• Simplified setup: Connect your YouTube account, pick the content you want to distribute, and get your first videos on Spotify in minutes.

For creators who have built substantial video libraries on YouTube, the offering provides a way to extend the lifespan and potential commercial value of their content while reaching audiences who increasingly consume video podcasts on Spotify.

The YouTube-to-Spotify distribution offering is available through Flightcast for $100 per month.

Additionally, creators leveraging Flightcast’s YouTube-to-Spotify offering also retain full access to its broader hosting and distribution capabilities, allowing them to expand their reach beyond Spotify. This includes distributing video content to platforms such as Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, and Amazon Music, as well as making audio versions available across other major podcast platforms.

For more information, visit https://flightcast.com/youtubers.

The Diary Of A CEO, the podcast hosted by British entrepreneur and investor Steven Bartlett, is the most-subscribed podcast on YouTube's podcast charts, with 21.3 million YouTube subscribers on 1 November 2026, according to YouTube's public subscriber counts.

The channel published 87 full-length video episodes between 1 January and 31 October 2026, in more than 20 languages, and recorded more than 1 billion YouTube views between 1 January and 30 October 2026, compared with about 399 million in the first ten months of 2025, according to FlightStory's YouTube Studio data.

The milestone comes nine years after Bartlett began recording a personal audio diary in his bedroom in Manchester, using an inexpensive microphone and a sock as a makeshift pop shield. His early episodes attracted around 40 listeners, many of them friends.

The Diary Of A CEO began in 2017 as a show about Bartlett's own experience of building a business, expanded into interviews. The podcast finally became consistent and began publishing full video episodes weekly on YouTube in 2020 as a pandemic passion project. Its conversations now span business, psychology, health, relationships, science, technology and global affairs.

Over the years, Bartlett has interviewed some of the world's most recognisable figures, including Michelle Obama, former US Vice President Kamala Harris, Jada Pinkett Smith, Mel Robbins, Matthew McConaughey, MrBeast and US Vice President JD Vance.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeared on The Diary Of A CEO in an episode released on 22 October 2026. The conversation was recorded in Ukrainian with two human interpreters, and the interview has since been made available in more than 20 languages using AI voice technology, according to FlightStory. That conversation has now reached more than 7 million views, in just 10 days.

International audiences have become a significant part of the show's growth. Nearly a quarter of The Diary Of A CEO's YouTube views in 2026, about 261 million, were on audio tracks in languages other than English, led by Spanish, Russian, German, Portuguese and French, according to YouTube Studio data from FlightStory, which produces the podcast.

Independent rankings and awards for The Diary Of A CEO include:

• No.1 by average audience per episode in Podscribe's podcast rankings for March 2026 (about 3.3 million estimated downloads and views per episode) and July 2026 (about 4.4 million).
• No.2 in Spotify's global Top Podcasts list for 2025 (Spotify Wrapped, published 3 December 2025).
• The 2026 Webby Award for Individual Creator: Podcast, won by Steven Bartlett (April 2026).
• Best Business & Finance Podcast at the 2026 iHeartPodcast Awards (March 2026).

What began as Bartlett recording alone has grown into a production supported by a team of researchers, producers, guest bookers, editors and strategists, who keep developing and testing new ways to bring the conversations to audiences around the world.

Steven Bartlett said: "When I started The Diary Of A CEO, I was sitting in my bedroom in Manchester, recording into a microphone. About 40 people listened to those first episodes. It's quite difficult to comprehend where it's got to today.

"I'm incredibly proud of the people who make this show and grateful to everyone who chooses to spend their time with us. The moments that stay with me most are when somebody tells me that something they heard on the podcast has made a difference to their life.

"The show has changed so much over the years because my interests and curiosity have changed and it will continue to evolve as I move into different phases of my life. I also joke to my friends that they need to prepare for the parenting episodes if I’m fortunate enough to become a dad! Our focus has always been on what we call the “one percents” - how we can make the next conversation better, ask better questions and give people something genuinely valuable. That's what we're going to keep focusing on and we do feel like we’re just getting started.

“We owe an awful lot to our team, our guests our partners, and strategically, translating every episode of the show into more than 20+ languages has been an incredible unlock and allows us to reach the rest of the world.”

The Diary Of A CEO is produced by FlightStory, part of Steven.com, and is available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and all other major podcast platforms.

Ranking covers shows in YouTube's Top 100 podcast chart, compared by YouTube's public subscriber counts, which YouTube rounds, checked at 13:40 GMT on 1 November 2026.

Subscriber ranking. Source: YouTube's public subscriber counts, checked at 13:40 GMT on 1 November 2026, for shows in YouTube's Top 100 podcast chart (charts.youtube.com/podcasts/us). YouTube rounds public counts to three significant figures.

The Diary Of A CEO (youtube.com/@TheDiaryOfACEO): 21.3 million The Joe Rogan Experience (youtube.com/@joerogan): 21.2 million Source for both figures: YouTube public subscriber counts, 13:40 GMT, 1 November 2026.

Subscriber growth in 2026: About 14.2 million on 29 December 2025 (Internet Archive capture of youtube.com/@TheDiaryOfACEO) to 21.3 million on 1 November 2026 (YouTube public count, 13:40 GMT), an increase of about 7.1 million, or roughly 50%. Both figures are rounded by YouTube.

Episodes and views: 87 full-length video episodes published from 1 January to 31 October 2026. Channel views of 1,030,987,725 from 1 January to 30 October 2026 (all formats, including Shorts), against 399,059,197 from 1 January to 31 October 2025. Source: FlightStory's YouTube Studio data, extracted 1 November 2026.

Languages: 260,775,120 of 1,118,418,002 YouTube views from 1 January to 31 October 2026 (23.3%) were on audio tracks other than English, according to YouTube Studio's audio-track breakdown. The number of language versions of the Zelenskyy episode comes from FlightStory.

Podscribe: Podscribe ranked The Diary Of A CEO No.1 by estimated average downloads and views per episode in March 2026 (3,349,230) and July 2026 (4,442,708). These are Podscribe estimates.

Spotify Wrapped 2025: The Diary Of A CEO ranked No.2 in Spotify's global Top Podcasts list for 2025, published 3 December 2025.

Awards: Steven Bartlett won the 2026 Webby Award for Individual Creator: Podcast (winners announced 21 April 2026). The Diary Of A CEO won Best Business & Finance Podcast at the 2026 iHeartPodcast Awards (16 March 2026).

Zelenskyy episode: Released on YouTube and podcast platforms on 22 October 2026, recorded in Ukrainian with two human interpreters.

On Air Presents today announced the first wave of talent and programming for On Air Fest 2027, returning to Brooklyn February 23–25 for its landmark 10th edition. The three-day anniversary celebration will bring together creators, artists, industry leaders and audiences for live podcasts, conversations, performances, parties, and immersive experiences exploring the future of storytelling.

The initial lineup includes live tapings of Why Are You Like This with Megan Rapinoe, CNN’s Chasing Life with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and 10% Happier with Dan Harris, alongside appearances by music critic Anthony Fantano and The Sam Sanders Show’s Sam Sanders, plus a live taping of CNN’s Engagement Party with Audie Cornish and Ari Shapiro, who exclusively previewed the new show at last year’s On Air Fest. Spanning sports, journalism, music, culture and personal well-being, the first wave reflects the range of voices and ideas that have made On Air a gathering place for creators and audiences over the past decade.

The festival will also feature live tapings of WNYC’s On The Media with Brooke Gladstone and Micah Loewinger and WXPN’s World Café with Raina Douris, as well as appearances by One Song’s Diallo Riddle and LUXXURY and Chameleon’s Josh Dean. Leon Neyfakh and Sayre Quevedo will discuss narrative podcasting in a conversation centered on Death of an Artist and Reaching Out, while actor and comedian Connor Ratliff will host a main stage.

Ahead of the anniversary festival, On Air Presents hosted a Podcast Business Salon with Bloomberg last night at Ludlow House in New York City. An intimate preview to the Podcast Business Summit, the salon explored podcasting through the lens of a hitmaker. Bloomberg’s Ashley Carman led a discussion with Jenna Weiss-Berman, interim Co-CEO for New York Public Radio / WNYC, Head of Podcasting at Paper Kite Productions and co-creator of Good Hang with Amy Poehler, and Leon Neyfakh, Co-Founder of Prologue Projects and co-creator of Slow Burn.

Under the theme “10 Years On…,” On Air Fest 2027 will revisit and remix the people, ideas and formats that have shaped its first decade while looking ahead to what comes next. Combining the spirit of an art institution and music festival with a creator-led approach, On Air brings podcasts, creators, audiences and brands together to experiment with what storytelling can become when it moves from the feed to the stage. Check out 100 moments from On Air’s history that changed the way we listen HERE with the On Air 100.

The festival begins Tuesday, February 23, with the Podcast Business Summit presented with Bloomberg at Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg. Hosted by Bloomberg reporter Ashley Carman, the invite-only daytime gathering will convene leaders across media, technology, advertising, publishing and podcasting. Applications to attend are now open HERE.

That evening, the Ambies, The Podcast Academy’s annual Awards for Excellence in Podcasting, returns to On Air for the second consecutive year at Arlo Williamsburg, directly across the street from Wythe Hotel. The awards will honor the year’s most outstanding achievements in podcasting, bringing the community together to celebrate the shows, talent, and professionals shaping the medium. Ambie Submissions are now open; podcasters and publishers can submit HERE. 

On Wednesday, February 24, On Air Fest’s public programming begins with a full day of industry and creative conversations, followed by the official festival party. Programming continues Thursday, February 25, with additional daytime sessions and a closing night of live shows, performances and more.

Each year, On Air Fest brings together more than 250 artists and storytellers working across audio, video, film, art, writing and music, welcoming more than 3,000 attendees. Previous participants have included Anderson Cooper, Malcolm Gladwell, Seth Meyers, Norah Jones, Wyclef Jean, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, Audie Cornish, Jad Abumrad, Terry Gross, Francis Ford Coppola, Ira Glass and many more.

The On Air Fest 2027 call for programming entries is now open, inviting creators, artists, brands, thought leaders, and storytellers to submit ideas for consideration HERE. Talent, venues, programming, and additional anniversary initiatives will be announced in the coming months.

Tickets for On Air Fest 2027 are available now HERE, with General Admission, Premium, and VIP options available at 40% off Early Bird pricing through November 16th. Additional talent, programming, and anniversary initiatives will be announced in the coming months.

The partnership will launch with Drink Cart Scramble, a comedic video series in which lifelong friends Paul Rivera, Justin Leonard and Oronde Garrett link up to talk golf, sports, culture and whatever the week throws at them. Rivera is an Emmy Award-winning show creator, co-founder and co-host, Leonard is a well-known and respected co-founder and sports marketing executive and Garrett is an A-list talent manager representing a roster of high-profile names across film and television. The Drink Cart crew takes their banter onto the course for high-stakes, marquee scramble matches against some of the biggest names across sports, entertainment and digital culture, featuring members from Homecoming Golf Club and building on the franchise’s mix of competition, personality and community. The first match premieres November 24 on YouTube and will feature LeBron James with an evolving lineup of top-tier guests to follow.

“Golf is one of the most culturally relevant spaces in sports right now, and Homecoming Golf is right at the center of it,” said Chris Balfe, CEO of Red Seat Ventures. “Our job is to give creators the distribution, ad sales and business infrastructure to turn a great show into a lasting media company. We’re excited to be bringing new talent into our sports vertical as we continue adding genres to the portfolio, and _Drink Cart Scrambl_e is exactly the kind of premium, personality-driven programming we can scale.”

Homecoming Golf was created to bring fans closer to the people, personalities and conversations shaping golf today. Combining original programming, a physical gathering place, live events and merchandise, the brand builds a connected community around the culture and experiences of modern golf — making the sport feel more current and accessible to a broader audience.

“We built Homecoming Golf to show the side of the game people actually talk about — the personalities, the stories and the fun of being out there,” said Paul Rivera, Founder and CEO of Homecoming Golf. “Partnering with Red Seat Ventures gives us the distribution, advertising and production muscle to grow Drink Cart Scramble into a real franchise and bring it to a far bigger audience without changing what makes it work.”

The partnership expands Red Seat Ventures’ growing portfolio across sports, entertainment and creator-led media. RSV represents more than 40 premium creators spanning true crime, comedy, news, sports and entertainment, with a combined audience of tens of millions of monthly consumers across audio and video. Homecoming Golf joins a sports slate that RSV continues to build out as fan demand for creator-led sports programming accelerates, and follows recent partnerships with Caleb Hammer’s Financial Audit and Charlie Sheen’s Mostly Sheenius.

Broadcast live from a professional television studio, the Goalhanger production will run from 5am-8am GMT (midnight-3am ET), as results emerge from key races across the United States.

Titled 'America Decides', the special will see Katty and Anthony deliver live analysis and reaction as results unfold, exploring what they mean for control of Congress, Donald Trump's presidency and the direction of American politics over the next two years.

Joining them in the studio will be Ed Elson, co-host of Prof G Markets, and Amanda Renteria, former National Political Director for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, alongside a range of remote guests offering further insight and reaction throughout the broadcast.

https://www.youtube.com/live/y50zYUEIbwM

Viewers will also be able to get involved, submitting live questions and taking part in interactive YouTube polls as results come in.

The three-hour special will be the culmination of an extended programme of midterms coverage from The Rest Is Politics: US, with five additional livestreams in the run-up to election night:

• Wednesday 28 October: 6pm GMT / 2pm ET
• Thursday 29 October: 8pm GMT / 4pm ET
• Friday 30 October: 8pm GMT / 4pm ET
• Monday 2 November: 8pm GMT / 3pm ET
• Tuesday 3 November: 6pm GMT / 1pm ET

All coverage will be streamed on The Rest Is Politics: US YouTube channel, where viewers can also set a reminder for the main three-hour election special on Wednesday 4 November. Recordings of each livestream will also be made available on The Rest Is Politics: US podcast feed following broadcast.

The livestream follows Goalhanger's live coverage of the 2024 US presidential election, which brought together Alastair Campbell, Rory Stewart, Anthony Scaramucci and other Goalhanger talent for a special broadcast from New York, attracting more than 2.5 million streams on YouTube alone.

MeidasTouch Network has partnered with free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) operator Swerve TV to launch a new 24/7 news channel, bringing MeidasTouch’s original reporting, live programming, legal analysis and commentary to streaming television audiences. The channel will first debut on Prime Video and Fire TV on October 27 in the U.S. with distribution across additional streaming platforms to follow.

Founded in March 2020 by brothers Ben, Brett and Jordy Meiselas, MeidasTouch has grown into a multi-show news network with more than 18 million followers and over 1 billion views across platforms every month.

“Powered by our MeidasMighty community, MeidasTouch Network is already the top news network in audio podcasts according to Podscribe, and in YouTube video podcasts according to YouTube’s metrics, so taking this next step is a natural way for us to stay at the cutting edge of where the news industry is going,” said Ben Meiselas, co-founder of MeidasTouch Network. “The future of streaming news is here now. We will meet our audience wherever they are and welcome new viewers into our community through this new 24/7 format.”

The channel will feature MeidasTouch’s signature live news programming Monday and Thursday at 8 PM ET, complemented by breaking-news coverage, legal analysis and a continuous stream of contributor programming throughout the day.

Programming will be anchored by Ben Meiselas’s breaking-news updates and the award-winning MeidasTouch Podcast with Ben, Brett and Jordy Meiselas, along with Legal AF, Scott MacFarlane Reports, Katie Phang News, The Parnas Perspective with Aaron Parnas, The Intersection with Michael Popok, The PoliticsGirl Podcast with Leigh McGowan, Majority 54 with Jason Kander and Ravi Gupta, UNCOVERED with Ron Filipkowski and Anthony Davis, On Democracy with FP Wellman, and The Weekend Show with Anthony Davis. The channel will also feature news updates and commentary from Tennessee Brando and other MeidasTouch contributors.

New episodes of The MeidasTouch Podcast are released Tuesday and Friday mornings, while breaking-news updates and commentary are published throughout the day. MeidasTouch Network encompasses a sprawling portfolio of YouTube channels and podcasts, including Scott MacFarlane Reports, Katie Phang News and Legal AF, providing a steady stream of timely news programming and marquee shows from some of the biggest names in news.

“The Meiselas brothers have built one of the most engaged and fastest-growing audiences in news,” said Steve Shannon, CEO of Swerve TV. “MeidasTouch delivers high-volume, high-velocity news programming, which is particularly well suited to a 24/7 streaming channel, featuring a mix of live shows and breaking-news coverage to complement a deep library of interviews, analysis and commentary. We’re thrilled to bring MeidasTouch to TV audiences, beginning with Prime Video and Fire TV.”

The channel is scheduled to launch on October 27th ahead of the US midterm elections. MeidasTouch and Swerve TV are also exploring additional distribution opportunities to bring its 24/7 news channel to audiences wherever they watch.

Swerve TV has established a track record of building and distributing streaming channels around distinctive media brands and personalities, including partnerships with Scott Galloway for The Prof G Channel and Don Lemon for The Don Lemon Channel. Swerve TV also operates and distributes Swerve Combat and Swerve Women’s Sports.

Podbean has announced the launch of the Podbean Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server, establishing a seamless, direct connection between Podbean podcast accounts and leading AI environments including Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor. Designed for both technical creators leveraging agentic workflows and casual podcasters seeking intuitive AI help, the integration turns complex production processes into simple, natural language prompts.

What podcasters can do

With the Podbean MCP Server connected, creators can manage their entire show directly from their favorite AI interface:

• Automated Episode Generation: Turn raw audio into polished, publication-ready episodes with automated titles, show notes, chapter markers, and transcripts generated by Podbean AI.
• One-Prompt Audio Optimization: Enhance sound quality automatically with background noise reduction, level balancing, and voice clarity tuning.
• Seamless Publishing & Scheduling: Plan content calendars, draft release schedules, and publish episodes directly within conversational threads.
• SEO & AI Discoverability: Optimize episode metadata to boost discoverability across search engines and AI discovery tools, complete with side-by-side review previews.
• Conversational Analytics: Query listener metrics, geographic reach, traffic sources, and platform trends using natural questions to receive actionable growth insights.
• Agentic Content Planning: Identify patterns among top-performing episodes and automatically generate data-backed content concepts for future shows.

Creators stay in control

Security and user control are central to the integration. Podcasters authenticate through Podbean's standard OAuth sign-in without sharing sensitive account credentials with third-party tools. AI-generated actions default to draft mode, ensuring human-in-the-loop oversight before any content goes live. Creators retain full administrative authority and can revoke integration access at any time.

"Podbean has always focused on making podcasting straightforward and accessible," said David Xu, CEO of Podbean. "By connecting Podbean directly to agentic AI environments, we're removing friction from repetitive workflows, allowing podcasters to spend less time managing technical tasks and more time creating great content."

Availability and pricing

The Podbean MCP Server is available now for subscribers on Unlimited Audio plans or higher, as well as users on a 14-day free trial. It supports Claude, the ChatGPT desktop app, Cursor, as well as custom AI agents compatible with remote MCP and OAuth authentication. Setup guides and example prompts are at podbean.com/podcast-mcp-server.

About Podbean Podbean is a podcast hosting and monetization platform that helps creators and businesses publish, grow and earn from their shows. Plans include unlimited storage, unmetered bandwidth, advanced podcast stats, a custom podcast website, monetization tools and one-click distribution to major listening apps. Learn more at podbean.com.

Australian sports media and podcasting network Clubby Sports is gearing up for a bumper summer, securing the advertising sales rights to All Over Bar The Cricket, featuring Australian cricket heavyweights.

The partnership sees Clubby Sports entrusted with taking the popular podcast to market, connecting brands looking to be part of the summer sporting conversation with one of cricket's most entertaining and reputable line-ups.

And Clubby isn't stopping there, with a new podcast Keeping Up With Sam Harper launching in mid-November, alongside the return of social-first series Chasing Tayls with Will Taylor and 200 PLUS entering its Summer Series.

Cricket Heavyweights Lead the Charge

Launched in mid-2025, All Over Bar The Cricket has quickly established itself as a must-listen for cricket fans, delivering bold opinions, big laughs and the stories you won't hear in the commentary box.

Published weekly throughout summer and fortnightly in off-season, the show is cricket talk the Aussie way. Unfiltered, unapologetic and straight from the sheds. There's nothing orthodox about it.

The podcast has already built a highly engaged audience across audio and social media, presenting a compelling opportunity for brands looking to reach passionate sports fans.

Zach Kangelaris, Co-founder and Partnerships Director at Clubby Sports, said the partnership was a major signing for the network. 

"All Over Bar the Cricket is the headline act of our summer content offering, and we're excited to be bringing it to market. With James Brayshaw, Matthew Hayden and Greg Blewett behind the mic, it's A-grade talent with genuine cricket credibility,” Kangelaris said.

"The team has already built a significant and highly engaged Australian audience, averaging 200k viewers/listeners and 3.1 million views per month on social media in its first season.

"For brands wanting to own the Australian summer, this is a great opportunity to connect with cricket fans through voices they already know and trust."

James Brayshaw, host of All Over Bar the Cricket and Co-founder of Best Life Media, owner and publisher of the podcast, said:

“All Over Bar the Cricket is a really cool mixture of strong opinions, great stories and long-standing mates who really enjoy each other’s company, all based around the great game of cricket. It makes enormous sense for Clubby Sports to represent the podcast.” 

A Summer Line-Up With Plenty in the Tank

Clubby Sports is also preparing to launch a brand new podcast, Keeping Up With Sam Harper, in mid-November. The Melbourne Star and Victorian wicket-keeper/batsman has been in stellar form, earning his first call up to the Australian Test Squad in South Africa.

“I’m passionate about media and it’s a career I would like to pursue once I finish playing, so I’m always looking for ways to build my skills. I’ve done some podcasting in the past but I’m excited to have my own show,” Harpers said. 

“We’re going to start small with six episodes in season one but I can guarantee they will be interesting guests with amazing stories to tell. The show is about cricketers, but it’s not just about cricket.”

Meanwhile, social-first cricket series Chasing Tayls will see popular sports creator Will Taylor put athletes and big-name guests to the test in a unique six-ball challenge.

With 16 runs needed for victory, guests face Will's left-arm seam bowling while Sam Harper takes on umpiring duties, ensuring there's no shortage of questionable decisions, competitive banter and laughs along the way. 

And for sports fans who like a bit of everything, 200 PLUS is jumping straight into its Summer Series, with host and journalist Nick Butler joined by a rotating chair of experts covering cricket, racing, basketball, tennis and more, with a sprinkling of AFL of course.

The summer series will feature five cricket-focused episodes, with special guests joining Butler to preview the ODI series against England and the four-Test series against New Zealand.

Together, the expanded content slate reinforces Clubby Sports' growing position in Australia's sports media landscape, offering brands opportunities to connect with audiences through podcasts, video, social media and talent-led content partnerships.

Howzat for a Summer line-up?

NOVA Entertainment partner AIIMS Creator Hub continues to build momentum in 2026, expanding its growing slate of original podcasts with the addition of new sports podcast MAYDAY and true crime series The Disappearance of Katie Walker, while their popular sports podcast Unscripted with Josh Mansour also joins Nova Podcasts.

Building on the breakout success of their hit podcast MAFS Funny, founders Joshua Fox and Pedro Cuccovillo Vitola have quickly established AIIMS Creator Hub as an emerging force in Australian podcasting, with distinctive, talent-led formats spanning entertainment, sport and true crime. 

AIIMS’ breakout hit MAFS Funny launched in January 2025 and has since amassed more than 5.6 million downloads. Hosted by Fox, the podcast has become a destination for Married At First Sight fans.

This month, as the Rugby League World Cup is in full swing, AIIMS Creator Hub has expanded its sports offering with the launch of MAYDAY, an unfiltered podcast hosted by Wests Tigers NRL brothers Terrell and Taylan May.

MAYDAY gives fans a look beyond the footy field, with the brothers talking not only rugby league but culture, family and everything in between. The show also features guest interviews, fan interactions and exclusive content centred on Terrell and Taylan’s lives beyond the game.

MAYDAY joins AIIMS Creator Hub’s popular rugby league podcast Unscripted with Josh Mansour. Hosted by former elite NRL player and media personality Josh Mansour, Unscripted has recorded 724,000 downloads and more than three million YouTube views since launching in May 2025, alongside more than 31 million Instagram views and 12 million TikTok views across its social footprint.

AIIMS Creator Hub has also extended its original storytelling into true crime with The Disappearance of Katie Walker, which launched in July.

The series follows the disappearance of British-born Sydney mother-of-two Katie Walker, who was last seen in Sydney’s eastern suburbs on May 23. With the case unfolding in real time, the podcast focuses on Katie, the circumstances surrounding her disappearance and her family and friends’ ongoing search for answers.

Joshua Fox, co-founder of AIIMS Creator Hub said, “From the beginning, Pedro and I wanted AIIMS Creator Hub to be a place where great talent and strong ideas could become content people genuinely want to spend time with. MAFS Funny gave us an incredible start, and with NOVA as our partner, it’s been really exciting to see the slate grow. Each podcast is very different, but they’re all built around distinctive voices, compelling stories and a real connection with audiences.”

AIIMS co-founder Pedro Cuccovillo added, “We’ve been deliberate about building a diverse slate rather than trying to replicate the success of one format. The focus is on creating podcasts that have a clear reason to exist and can build communities around them. Our partnership with NOVA gives us a fantastic opportunity to build on that and connect the content with even more audiences.”

Rachel Corbett, Network Director for Nova Podcasts added, “AIIMS Creator Hub has built impressive momentum by combining strong creative instincts with an exceptional understanding of how to build audiences through social media. Since partnering with Josh and Pedro, we've seen them build on the success of MAFS Funny while taking a considered approach to expanding their portfolio into new genres and formats. It's exciting to see their ambitions for the business taking shape and we're proud to be part of that growth.”

AIIMS Creator Hub has been a partner of NOVA Entertainment since March 2025, with its suite of podcasts available through the Nova Player and wherever listeners get their podcasts.

SONARR, Australia’s audio industry awards, has announced its second edition. Submissions open at 10am on 1 June 2027, offering another \$10,000 AUD cash prize pool for the top winners. The team will also launch SONARR Lounge, a new initiative running alongside the SONARR Awards.

The announcement comes two weeks after the inaugural gala, which drew almost 400 entries and recognised 91 finalists and 34 winners from every state and trade in the audio industry. Around two-thirds of 2026 winners were independent creators, recognised alongside productions from major networks such as ABC, Listnr, Newscorp, Nova and SBS. The result reflects SONARR’s commitment to giving independent productions a place on the same platform as the industry’s biggest names.

Eligibility and fees for the awards remain unchanged. Podcast, radio, audiobook and voiceover productions can enter, whether independent or from organisations with four or more employees. Entry is \$75 AUD for independents and \$250 AUD for commercial productions.

Entries are assessed and judged through the rigorous SONARR standard powered by leading industry and academic voices.

What is the SONARR Lounge?

SONARR will also launch SONARR Lounge, a new initiative of workshops and masterclasses for the wider industry and audio enthusiasts. It will run alongside the awards, separate from entries and judging.

Founder Pariya Taherzadeh said the industry’s response shaped what comes next:

“The feedback from the industry has been generous and clear: Australian audio was ready for a refresh and wanted more from it. We’ve listened, and 2027 is our answer. SONARR is about more than just another night in the year. The SONARR Lounge is getting its own programs separate to the awards, and details are coming soon.”

The inaugural awards were supported by AFTRS, RØDE, Original Audio and AAVA, as well as more than 40 Australian practitioners and academics.

Third quarter 2026

• Net sales in the quarter amounted to SEK 802.3m (642.1), corresponding to net sales growth of 25% (35%). The growth was driven by strong performance in North America, where net sales grew by 54% (58%).
• Organic net sales growth was 18% (41%), adjusted for currency effects and acquisitions.
• EBITDA for the quarter was SEK 73.7m (37.6), resulting in an EBITDA margin of 9% (6%).
• Adjusted for items affecting comparability of SEK 4.2m (2.2), the adjusted EBITDA was SEK 77.8m (39.7). Items affecting comparability were mostly related to transaction costs in connection with the acquisition of Backyard Ventures.
• Operating profit amounted to SEK 47.7m (15.9), resulting in an EBIT margin of 6% (2%).
• The adjusted operating profit amounted to SEK 51.9m (18.1), reflecting an adjusted EBIT margin of 6% (3%).
• The result for the period amounted to SEK 45.4m (7.3).
• Earnings per share for the period before dilution amounted to SEK 0.25 (0.04). Earnings per share after dilution amounted to SEK 0.24 (0.04).
• Cash flow from operating activities amounted to SEK 21.7m (19.6).
• The number of listens and views (with views currently HLS-only) amounted to 1,155m (1,108), corresponding to a 4% increase versus the same period last year.
• The Average Revenue Per Listen or View (ARPLV), with views currently HLS-only, increased to SEK 0.69 (0.58), reflecting an increase of 20%.

Other significant events

• In August, Acast announced the acquisition of Backyard Ventures, a leading US network whose roster of 200+ creators spans audio, YouTube, newsletters and social. The acquisition strengthens Acast's position as the world's largest pure-play podcast company and extends its ability to monetize podcasters across every channel. It also gives Acast a presence in Austin, one of the most strategically important podcast markets in the US.

Comments from the CEO: Record revenue, record margins
Acast delivered another record quarter in Q3 2026, with our highest ever revenue and our highest adjusted EBITDA and EBIT margins to date. Growth continues to translate into profitability, while we invest in the leadership, talent and infrastructure needed to lead the market’s expansion into omnichannel podcast monetization.

ANOTHER RECORD REVENUE QUARTER
Net sales reached SEK 802m in Q3 2026, our highest-ever quarterly revenue, up 25% Y/Y. North America was the strongest driver of growth and is now our largest segment, up 54% Y/Y. In August we acquired US network Backyard Ventures, which contributed SEK 28m in sales during the quarter.

Other Markets grew 18% and Europe grew more modestly at 5% against a tough comparison, also following a strong second quarter that was partly supported by advertiser activity around the World Cup. Over the first nine months Europe has grown 16% organically, and with a new EVP, Europe, joining in early 2027 to lead the region as one market for the first time, our conviction in the opportunity there has only increased.

Our monetization strategy continues to deliver. Average Revenue Per Listen or View (ARPLV), where views are still HLS-only (Apple’s chosen video format), increased by 20% Y/Y to SEK 0.69, while listens and views grew 4% Y/Y. Growth is driven both by an expanding base of monetizable inventory, and by making that inventory more valuable.

HIGHEST-EVER ADJUSTED EBIT MARGIN
Scaling our revenue base against a controlled cost base is delivering the strongest profitability in our history. Gross margin remained stable at 39%, in line with Q3 2025, while adjusted operating expenses excluding depreciation increased by 11% Y/Y against sales growth of 25%, giving clear operating leverage across the Group.

As a result, our adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 10% from 6% a year ago, with adjusted EBITDA almost doubling to SEK 78m (SEK 40m in Q3 2025). Adjusted EBIT nearly tripled to SEK 52m, representing a 6% margin, compared to SEK 18m and a 3% margin in Q3 2025.

ACCELERATING OMNICHANNEL MONETIZATION FOR PODCASTERS
Our Podcast Pulse 2026 research confirms a decisive shift in audience behavior: fans no longer choose between formats. Today, 88% of listeners consume both audio and video (up from 78% last year), and 63% have started an episode in one format and finished it in another. Audiences follow their favorite creators fluidly across audio, video, social and newsletters. As consumer habits blur these traditional channel lines, brands are increasingly demanding a single point of entry to access every channel. While podcast revenue is still overwhelmingly audio, monetization always follows attention and consumption – which is why we’ve been laying the groundwork for this evolution for a long time.

We are directly investing in the leadership and infrastructure required to capitalize on this shift. We recently appointed Liv Sandberg as EVP, Europe, bringing our European markets under a single leader for the first time as the region continues to scale. Liv joins our management team in early 2027 from TikTok, where she leads advertising across 17 markets, and has held prior leadership roles at Meta and Starcom. Her deep expertise - both creator and advertiser side, and within video - strengthens our position as global ad budgets move decisively toward omnichannel podcast buys. We also strengthened our product leadership with the appointment of Mark Bulling as VP Product, joining from WPP Media’s data and technology company Choreograph. With more than fifteen years of product leadership experience including Facebook/Meta and Apple, Mark will lead product strategy across our creator and advertiser offerings.

In tandem with leadership and talent investments, we are expanding our operational network through strategic M&A. The acquisition of Backyard Ventures brings a roster of 200+ creators across audio, YouTube, newsletters and social -all high-engagement formats that act as vital touchpoints in the modern omnichannel ecosystem - alongside premium US inventory, and specialist expertise in video sponsorship and direct response. While Acast has long excelled at direct response advertising - campaigns explicitly designed to drive immediate, trackable consumer actions and deliver a highly measurable ROI - integrating Backyard’s specialized capabilities will significantly reinforce and scale this proven revenue driver. It also establishes our presence in Austin, one of the most strategically important podcast markets in the US. Combining this with Acast’s global ad tech and advertiser demand allows us to give brands a single, frictionless point of entry across channels, and accelerates omnichannel monetization for our podcasters.

STRATEGY AND TARGETS ON TRACK
This quarter’s results show a model that scales: strong growth, expanding margins and a growing North American business, now our largest segment. With new leadership joining in Europe and Product and Backyard Ventures adding specialist video and creator expertise, we are strengthening the leadership and capabilities to extend that lead. We enter the final quarter confident that we are on the right path toward our 2028 targets.

Greg Glenday
CEO

Riverside, the AI-powered end-to-end content creation platform used by Spotify, NBC and the New York Times, today launched Riverside Agents: the first team of AI agents built specifically for video production. The agents take on the production work around a recording, from prepping the session to publishing the clips, and move it forward on their own. Riverside Agents are available today on web and mobile across all Riverside plans.

Video has become the default format for podcasters, creators and marketers, and the appetite for content has grown faster than anyone's time to make it. Solo creators and small teams have been running an entire studio's workload alone: prep, editing, clipping and distribution. Riverside Agents give every one of them a production team, so a one-person operation can run a show that looks and performs like it came out of a professional studio.

The launch marks a shift in how creators work with AI. Until now, AI tools have waited for instructions: the creator prompts, checks the result, and moves the work to the next step themselves. Riverside Agents take on a task, make the calls along the way and pass the work on, while the creator directs the show.

Riverside Agents are available today on web and mobile, on all Riverside plans. Some capabilities follow plan tier.

Meet the team

Each agent is a specialist in one stage of production:

• Producer preps the session and runs the studio: interview questions, talking points, scenes, layouts and branding, all ready to shape before recording starts.
• Editor turns a full-length recording into a finished episode. It proposes the editorial calls, like where to tighten the conversation and which moment makes the hook, and takes direction on what stays. Then it brings the edit to life with layouts, B-roll and motion graphics, and polishes the audio, captions and branding.
• Clipper finds the moments worth sharing and turns each one into a finished clip that’s ready to post.
• Marketer gets every clip live in the right places. It writes the post copy, creates thumbnails and plans where each clip should run, then posts or schedules it across social channels once approved.

Together, they work as one crew, with the creator in the director’s chair.

What sets Riverside Agents apart

• Proactive by design. A creator can wrap a recording and step away while the crew keeps working. When they check back in, the edit, the clips and the posts are drafted and waiting for their call.
• Specialist AI built for video. Each agent runs on a proprietary model tuned for one job. It works with editing tools Riverside built for conversational video, like removing pauses and filler words. That makes the agents faster and lighter on compute, so creators can finish full episodes without hitting a usage limit.
• Creator in control. Nothing goes live without the creator’s approval. The agents prepare, suggest and queue up the work, and the creator decides what to hand off and what to keep hands-on. Over time, the agents learn the creator’s preferences and editing style.
• Run your show from anywhere. The agents work in the cloud, so creators don’t need to stay at their desk. They can finish recording, close the laptop, and review and approve clips from their phone.

"Every creator deserves a production team. Riverside Agents give them one: a Producer, an Editor, a Clipper and a Marketer that know their show, get to work the moment recording ends, and bring back work creators are proud to put their name on. Their job is to direct.” — Nadav Keyson, CEO and Co-founder, Riverside

Airwave, the premium podcast and video network for the constantly curious, announced that it is launching an in-house advertising sales operation that will assume full responsibility for the network’s sales beginning in 2027.

The move marks the next stage of Airwave’s growth and creates a more direct connection among the network’s creators, advertising partners, and sales team. The expanded in-house operation gives agencies and brands one point of access to opportunities spanning host-read podcast advertising, digital video, YouTube, live programming, custom integrations, and broader multi-platform partnerships.

Airwave’s expanding portfolio represents more than 120 million combined monthly video views and podcast downloads. New opportunities available through Airwave’s in-house team in Q4 2026 include TYT, Philosophize This, and a growing slate of premium YouTube creators. Beginning in 2027, advertisers will gain direct access through Airwave to the company’s full podcast and video portfolio.

Airwave’s longtime sales partner, True Native Media, will continue to represent Airwave’s existing podcast roster through the end of 2026. At the same time, Airwave’s in-house team is working directly with advertisers on its new Q4 opportunities, as well as advance campaigns, renewals, and partnerships across the full network for 2027 and beyond.

“True Native has been an essential partner in Airwave’s growth,” said Ben Mathis, Chief Content Officer at Airwave. “Heather Osgood and her team have represented our creators with care, persistence, and integrity, and we are enormously grateful for everything they have helped us build. We are proud of our work together and look forward to finishing the year on a high note.”

Bringing sales in-house will allow Airwave to work more closely with creators and advertisers throughout the partnership process, from audience insight and initial planning to creative execution and campaign evaluation. It will also give buyers more direct access to the knowledge, flexibility, and collaborative thinking of the people who work with Airwave’s creators every day.

“The best media partnerships start with understanding the audience and what they came for,” said Charles Dannison, Senior Vice President of Sales and Brand Partnerships at Airwave. “Bringing sales in-house allows us to sit closer to our creators, respond more quickly to buyers, and build ideas around the specific relationship each show has with its audience. Our job is not simply to place advertising. It is to find the right connection among the brand, the creator, and the people who trust them.”

“Buyers do not need to wait until 2027 to begin working with us,” Dannison added. “The Young Turks, Philosophize This! and our growing video roster give us meaningful Q4 opportunities today. The full Airwave portfolio, representing more than 120 million monthly video views and podcast downloads, will open an even broader conversation for 2027.”

Airwave’s growing portfolio includes premium independent media brands and programs such as TYT, Think Fast Talk Smart, Motley Fool's Hidden Gems Investing, NerdWallet's Smart Money and Smart Travel, America’s Test Kitchen, TechCrunch, History Today, Fast Company Daily, The History Chicks, The New Republic’s Daily Blast, Data Over Dogma, and many, many more.

“Our ambition is not simply to become bigger,” Mathis said. “It is to build the most trusted and beloved independent media network in the industry, for advertisers, creators, and audiences alike.”

Advertisers and agencies interested in Q4 partnerships or 2027 opportunities can contact Airwave directly at howdy@airwavemedia.com.

Global, the Media & Entertainment group, today announced the expansion of its Plus subscription offering, with six more of its biggest podcast brands now available ad-free on Global Player and YouTube, alongside exclusive content from selected shows.

The latest additions give listeners more ways to enjoy the podcasts and presenters they love, with subscribers able to access ad-free episodes and bonus content from some of Global’s most popular shows.

A single subscription to James O’Brien unlocks access to ad-free episodes of Full Disclosure with James O'Brien, James O'Brien Daily, James O'Brien - The Whole Show, and James O'Brien's Mystery Hour. Subscribers can also enjoy exclusive new shows, including Ask James Anything, a weekly opportunity for listeners to put their questions directly to James, and James Reacts, a bonus series revisiting some of the funniest, most memorable and significant moments from his LBC shows, including stories and conversations he didn't have time to explore fully on air. James will also be writing two newsletters a month, exclusively for James O’Brien Plus subscribers.

The Crime Agents Plus will offer subscribers a monthly deep dive into landmark criminal cases, combining research, expert insight and compelling storytelling. The first episode will examine the Lucy Letby case, exploring the investigation, trial, and wider questions for healthcare, policing and the justice system.

The new subscriptions for James O’Brien, My Therapist Ghosted Me, The Crime Agents, The Sports Agents, The Wittering Whitehalls, and Vogue & Amber join existing Plus offerings, including LBC’s Nick Abbot - The Whole Show and Up To Speed, the leading F1 podcast, with more chart-topping and award-winning Global shows set to join Plus soon.

Plus gives audiences more ways to enjoy Global’s radio and podcast content without ads, on Global Player and YouTube. Podcast subscriptions start from £2.99 a month or £29.99 a year for ad-free episodes, and from £4.99 or £49.99 for ad-free episodes plus exclusive content.

Simon Pitts, Group CEO of Global, said: "I’m delighted we’re expanding our Plus offering with subscriptions for some of our biggest and most popular podcast brands. We want to give audiences more choice to enjoy the podcasts and presenters they love, with exclusive content and new experiences alongside ad-free versions of the shows they already listen to, on Global Player and YouTube. And this is just the beginning. More chart-topping Global podcasts will be joining Plus very soon.”

Craig Hunter, Managing Director, Global Studios, added: “The best podcasts make listeners feel part of the conversation. Plus takes that connection further, with questions you can put directly to presenters, more room for expert analysis and stories that go beyond the main show. Our show subscriptions work like a members’ club, building a community of fans by offering special access and creating even more two-way conversation. We’ll have more in-depth content, expert analysis and reaction, members-only Q&As, and newsletters from behind the scenes. It’s all about giving our audiences more of what they love.”

Podcast Plus is part of Global’s suite of subscription products under the Plus brand. Launched in September and already seeing strong numbers, Radio Plus takes out adverts and fills breaks with songs, giving the listener a seamless ad-free experience across platforms. Plus covers ad-free for live radio on all of Global’s music brands and catch up on all its audio brands … and now podcasts.

Podigee, the open podcast software from Berlin, is now listed in the Claude Connectors Directory and the ChatGPT plugin directory. Creators, marketing teams and publishers add Podigee with one click, sign in with their Podigee account, and can then maintain, publish and analyse their podcasts by asking their AI assistant.

The listings are the next step in work Podigee started early. In April 2025, Podigee released its first MCP server so that podcasters could ask an AI assistant about their analytics. Today, the connection offers nearly 50 tools and covers the publishing workflow from the first draft to distribution.

The work around the conversation

A podcast episode is a conversation. Publishing it is a list of chores: titles, show notes, chapter marks, transcripts, release dates, distribution to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and other platforms, posts for social channels, and reports for the team or the client. For a solo creator, that is time missing from the next episode. For a marketing team or a network with dozens of shows, it is a production line.

AI can now take on much of this work. In a survey Podigee ran among 384 podcast producers, half already use AI, and most of them every week.

Connected to Podigee, an assistant can:

• search everything that was said across a show and return the passages with episode and timestamp, so the back catalogue becomes material for new content,
• answer questions about downloads and compare episodes, for example "Which of my last ten episodes had the strongest first week, and what do they have in common?",
• write and update titles, descriptions, show notes, chapter marks and keywords, for one episode or up to 50 in one request,
• create draft episodes, and schedule or publish them,
• check where a show is live on each platform and what still needs to be done, and submit it to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Deezer and Listen Notes,
• import a podcast from another host by RSS (on paid plans),
• manage the listeners of private podcasts for internal communication,
• pick up the LinkedIn posts, newsletter sections, blog drafts, quotes and clips that Podigee has already prepared from an episode, and keep working on them in the chat.

The assistant works on top of the AI that is built into Podigee. Every episode is transcribed automatically, with the language detected, on every current plan including the free Launch plan. For new episodes, Podigee drafts titles, descriptions, show notes, keywords and chapter marks, and fills only the fields that are still empty. On request, it turns an episode into a LinkedIn post, a newsletter section or an SEO article in the podcast's own language, suggests quotes, and on larger plans cuts short video clips for social media. Inside the app, the Podigee AI assistant helps with the same tasks.

“AI can write the show notes. It can set chapters, schedule publication and check whether a show is live everywhere. But you make the conversation yourself. And that’s exactly what you get the hours back for: the work AI takes off your plate around it. I believe that in a few years nobody will publish a podcast without an assistant by their side, and we want Podigee to be the platform where this already works today,” says Mateusz Sójka, Co-founder and CEO of Podigee.

Built for creators, teams and publishers

• Creators get answers instead of dashboards and hand off the routine steps of every release, from show notes to the release time.
• Marketing and communications teams turn a question into a report for the next meeting, for example a summary for leadership, and reuse what was said in the podcast on their other channels.
• Publishers, studios, agencies and networks work across all their shows at once, from show notes for 50 episodes in one request to an analytics summary across every podcast in the account.

Open, and in the user's control

Podigee does not tie podcasters to one AI provider. The connection to AI assistants follows an open standard, and users choose the assistant they already work with.

Every consequential change runs as a preview first. The assistant shows what will change, and nothing happens until the user confirms that exact change. Each connection is tied to one Podigee account. Users choose its permissions, for example read-only or analytics only, and can revoke access at any time in Podigee under Connected apps. Podigee drafts and suggests; it does not post anything to social channels on the user's behalf.

"Your podcast is your voice. So we were strict about one rule: nothing gets published or changed until you say yes," says Mateusz Sójka.

Availability

The connection to AI assistants is included in every current Podigee plan, starting with the free Launch plan. How far back analytics go depends on the plan. In Claude, the Podigee connector is available on all plans; on Claude Team and Enterprise, an Owner adds it for the organisation first. The Podigee plugin in ChatGPT is not limited to particular countries. In ChatGPT Business, Enterprise and Edu workspaces, administrators decide which plugins members can install. Recordings are uploaded in Podigee itself; assistants that run on the user's computer, such as Claude Code or Codex, can upload the file directly.

Links

• Claude: https://claude.ai/directory/podigee
• ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/plugins/plugin_asdk_app_6ac38ec038088191b1134a7909638800
• Announcement: https://www.podigee.com/en/blog/podigee-in-claude-and-chatgpt
• Product page: https://www.podigee.com/en/features/mcp-server
• Setup guides: https://docs.podigee.com/documentation/start-here/ai-agents

Nominations for the 9th Canadian Podcast Awards open today, and the people choosing the winners are the ones who make Canadian podcasts.

Members who work in Canadian podcasting can nominate any eligible show, including their own, across 31 categories spanning comedy, true crime, arts, sports, current affairs, and more. The most nominated shows in each category go to a vote by all members, and the public gets its say through the People's Choice category.

Not a member yet? Anyone who is Canadian and works in podcasting can register for free at http://canpodawards.ca.

Eligible shows are Canadian-produced, with a primarily Canadian team and majority Canadian hosts, and released at least five episodes in 2025.

Last year, members submitted more than 2,200 nominations, and the number of people nominating grew by more than a third. Nominations close November 14 at http://canpodawards.ca, voting runs November 17 to December 2, and the winners are revealed in an online broadcast on December 16.

"We Canadians have a habit of waiting for someone else, somewhere else, to tell us our work matters. These awards exist so that the people making Canadian podcasts can recognize each other and say that the shows made here deserve to be celebrated here. Canadian culture has long been easy to take for granted, but backing our own voices matters more now than ever. If we don't celebrate Canadian podcasts, nobody will do it for us."
John Leschinski, Founder, Canadian Podcast Awards

KEY DATES
Nominations open: October 26
Nominations close: November 14
Voting: November 17 to December 2
Winners announced: December 16

“Email is a powerful conversion channel and often an undervalued asset,” said Jason Sew Hoy, Co-Founder & CEO of Supercast. “We built newsletters into Supercast so creators can bring in their existing email lists, drive direct connection with their audience and own everything in one place—exclusive content, live streams, newsletters—with visibility into what drives revenue.”

The Supercast newsletter experience allows creators to:

• Build Lists and Send Emails: Build and manage free and paid email lists natively, converting free readers directly into paid subscribers without leaving the platform.
• Know What Converts: Track newsletter-sourced revenue (newsletter MRR), open rates, click rates, read depth, subscriber growth and direct attribution from email to paid subscriptions all in the same dashboard as podcast and video analytics.
• Deliver the Right Content: Advanced content gating, tiering by subscription level and segment targeting allow creators to deliver the right content to the right audience, from free teasers to exclusive subscriber-only content.
• Make Email Feel Like Your Show: Link episodes directly into newsletters, extract AI-powered quotes and key moments from audio and embed playback, creating a seamless experience across all formats.
• Scale Across Your Network: Networks and media companies can manage separate newsletters for different shows and audiences, all with unified reporting across their entire business.

This newsletter capability builds on Supercast's successful introduction of live streaming in September 2026 and represents another way to deepen relationships with audiences and convert them into paid subscribers.

Supercast's newsletter feature is included in the platform's base pricing of $0.59 per subscriber per month. Custom pricing is available for large networks and media companies.

In Madrid, Podcast Days 2026 took place on 22 Oct, at the Espacio Movistar on Gran Via. The event showed a strong, confident podcast industry in Spain.

David R González from Genuina Media tells us some of the highlights:

Agency, network and podcast on the same stage

Genuina Media, Oxford Road and Iván Patxi of Noches de Historia shared the stage: the agency, the network and the podcast, together in one conversation. Giles Martin, Oxford Road's EVP of Strategy, joined Iván Patxi Gómez and me (David Roemer González, Co-founder and CEO Genuina Media) on the panel "Medir para crecer: lo que necesita el podcast español para atraer a las marcas internacionales" (Measuring to grow: what Spanish podcasting needs to attract international brands), which I moderated. (It's pictured above).

The conversation covered what Spanish podcasts need in measurement, metrics and standards to compete for international budgets, drawing on the campaigns the three of us already run together: third-party verification like Podscribe, consistent reporting, and the gap between how Spanish shows and US agencies measure success.

It felt like a turning point for Spanish podcasting. Having a US agency speak directly to Spanish creators opens up real opportunities with international brands, as long as shows can measure and report to the same standards as the rest of the industry.

The big platforms showed up

Acast had a strong presence, with Laura Hagen and Megan Davies presenting on the global state of podcasting in 2026 and how Spanish listening compares with other markets, plus two more panels on creators and brands. Amazon Music presented its vision for podcasts, audiobooks and music converging in one listening experience, and hosted the networking area. Spotify and YouTube joined the opening panel on the future of podcasting.

Podcast consultant José Antonio Gelado (Comunicando) hosted "La era del creador global" (The era of the global creator), bringing together Megan Davies (Acast), Claire Imoucha (Amazon Music) and Juan Ignacio Solera (iVoox) to discuss how creators can grow audiences internationally and find new ways to distribute and monetize their shows.

An industry that's maturing

The agenda showed how far the market has come: brands launching their own shows (KLM's Travel Well), Spain's National Library explaining how it preserves podcasts as cultural heritage, sessions on accessibility with Fundación ONCE, and Onda Cero and SER/Podium investing again in audio fiction.

The awards

The day closed with the Podcast Days 2026 awards gala at the Palacio de la Prensa in Callao, where Iker Casillas, the goalkeeper who captained Spain to the 2010 World Cup title, attended and received an award.

Edison Research at SSRS announces the Top 50 Podcasts in the U.S. from Edison Podcast Metrics™ based on reach for the third quarter of 2026 among weekly podcast consumers ages 13+. 

The Joe Rogan Experience, Crime Junkie, and The Daily top the list, as they did in Q2 2026.

Podcasts Detail

• 1 (1): The Joe Rogan Experience
• 2 (2): Crime Junkie
• 3 (3): The Daily
• 4 (4): Call Her Daddy
• 5 (5): SmartLess
• 6 (7): New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce
• 7 (8): This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
• 8 (6): Dateline NBC
• 9 (13): Rotten Mango
• 10 (11): The Breakfast Club
• 11 (10): MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories
• 12 (15): Morbid
• 13 (22): Huberman Lab
• 14 (16): Bad Friends
• 15 (9): Stuff you should know
• 16 (20): The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
• 17 (49): Dumb Blonde
• 18 (21): Good Hang with Amy Poehler
• 19 (19): Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend
• 20 (12): The MeidasTouch Podcast
• 21 (17): This American Life
• 22 (38): The Pat McAfee Show
• 23 (32): Pardon My Take
• 24 (33): Kill Tony
• 25 (27): The Mel Robbins Podcast
• 26 (14): Pod Save America
• 27 (41): The Ramsey Show
• 28 (45): Up First from NPR
• 29 (25): The Bill Simmons Podcast
• 30 (26): Murder, Mystery & Makeup
• 31 (28): Radiolab
• 32 (35): Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me
• 33 (23): Club Shay Shay
• 34 (37): My Favorite Murder
• 35 (40): The Shawn Ryan Show
• 36 (NEW): StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson
• 37 (NEW): Nightcap
• 38 (30): Candace
• 39 (NEW): Club 520
• 40 (24): 48 Hours
• 41 (34): The Ben Shapiro Show
• 42 (NEW): Distractible
• 43 (NEW): Straight Shooter with Stephen A.
• 44 (NEW): Hang Out with Sean Hannity
• 45 (43): The Joe Budden Podcast
• 46 (NEW): No Jumper
• 47 (NEW): Smosh Reads Reddit Stories
• 48 (31): TED Talks Daily
• 49 (NEW): Impaulsive with Logan Paul
• 50 (18): Planet Money

Out this time...

• OUT (29): Serial
• OUT (36): The Tucker Carlson Show
• OUT (39): The Rest is History
• OUT (42): Lex Fridman Podcast
• OUT (44): The Megyn Kelly Show
• OUT (46): The Why Files: Operation Podcast
• OUT (47): The Bulwark Podcast
• OUT (48): Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce
• OUT (50): How I Built This with Guy Raz

Breaking into the Top 20

Dumb Blonde breaks into the top 20 for the first time. Host Bunnie Xo made news in August after posting and removing an episode about her divorce from music artist Jelly Roll.

Welcome to the Top 25

The Pat McAfee Show debuts in the top 25. The sports podcaster released a highly criticized country rock album in August, shortly before the start of the 2026 NFL season.

Another sports podcast, Pardon My Take, breaks into the top 25. The show's creators published a book to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the podcast, appropriately titled:

Pardon My Book. Kill Tony breaks into the top 25. The show returned to Madison Square Garden in New York with back-to-back nightly specials.

Joining the Top 50

Startalk Radio, Club 520, The Stephen A. Smith Show/Straight Shooter, Hang Out with Sean Hannity, and Smosh Reads Reddit Stories all enter the top 50 for the first time.

Bubbling under: True Crime with Kendall Rae climbs 44 positions to 55th, just missing the top 50.

Tenderfoot TV, the award-winning podcast studio behind Up and Vanished, To Live and Die in LA, and Wisecrack, has partnered with Twisted Bricks and creator, award-winning stop-motion filmmaker Kristian Stenslie, to bring one of its most popular Radio Rental stories to life in an entirely new medium. Directed by Stenslie, the 10-minute stop-motion documentary short film, Laura of the Woods, uses intricate, handcrafted LEGO-inspired animation to visually retell a chilling firsthand account. The story follows a young boy whose ordinary day exploring the woods takes a disturbing turn when he encounters a mysterious girl whose intentions remain unclear. The film premieres October 22nd at 8 PM ET on YouTube, followed by the return of Radio Rental with new podcast episodes on October 23, just in time for Halloween.

Originally featured on Radio Rental, Laura of the Woods has generated over 3 million downloads, becoming one of the series' most memorable stories. Created by Payne Lindsey, Radio Rental explores bizarre crimes, paranormal encounters, and unexplained phenomena through firsthand accounts from the people who experienced them. Set inside a fictional 1980s video rental shop, the cult classic-inspired series blends documentary storytelling with dark comedy and has surpassed 85 million downloads since launching in 2019, celebrating its milestone 100th episode earlier this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z41YQN5Bx-c

The collaboration arrives amid a strong year for horror at the box office and a shifting entertainment landscape where independent creators are finding new ways to reach audiences. Rather than pursuing a conventional animated adaptation, Tenderfoot TV partnered with Twisted Bricks to create something unexpected: a creator-led documentary short that combines the nostalgic appeal of brick-built stop-motion with the immersive atmosphere of true-life horror.

“‘Laura of the Woods’ still creeps me out, and I already know how it ends,” said Payne Lindsey, co-founder of Tenderfoot TV and creator of Radio Rental. “Kristian and Twisted Bricks built this entire little nightmare by hand, one frame at a time. The level of detail is insane. You get caught up in the story and forget you’re watching stop-motion. I love that something made out of toys can be this unsettling.”

The upcoming season also welcomes back actor and comedian Tony Cavalero (“The Righteous Gemstones”), reprising his role as Vince. Cavalero follows Rainn Wilson (“The Office”), who originated the role of eccentric shopkeeper Terry Carnation, and comedian Jeff Foxworthy (“Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?”), who later took over the shop. The Radio Rental universe has also featured a memorable lineup of guest voices, including Tig Notaro (“Star Trek: Discovery”), Rachel Dratch (“Saturday Night Live”), Josh Radnor (“How I Met Your Mother”), Chris Redd (“Saturday Night Live”), and Brian Baumgartner (“The Office”).

The New York Times and Serial Productions today announced METRO with Sarah Koenig, a new narrative podcast bringing listeners stories about New York City and its most fascinating raw material: New Yorkers. The first two episodes are out today and new episodes drop every other week on Thursdays, wherever you get your podcasts.

Hosted by Sarah Koenig, host and co-creator of the award-winning podcast “Serial,” the show harnesses the power of The New York Times Metro desk, combining one of the best storytellers in audio with the country’s best newsroom.

Every other week, “METRO” mines a city packed with personality for investigations, personal stories, essays and interviews that take the bigness of New York and make it human-scale and relevant, no matter where you live. Episodes will feature stories reported by Koenig, the Serial Productions team and the Metro desk, which includes reporters covering city hall, transportation, housing and more.

“This show has been almost too easy to produce, because – who knew? – New Yorkers are the best talkers and storytellers. After spending more than a decade working on investigative, multi-episode series, I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to be able to just run out the door and find a great story. I’m having an unseemly amount of fun,” Koenig said.

Koenig is the executive producer of Serial Productions, and one of the most recognizable voices in audio as the host and co-creator of the “Serial” podcast. She was a print reporter for a decade before joining the staff of “This American Life” in 2004 and has won numerous journalism awards for her work at both “Serial” and “This American Life.”

“METRO” is executive produced by Julie Snyder, the executive editor of Serial Productions and co-creator of “Serial.”

Serial Productions, a New York Times company, creates narrative podcasts whose quality and innovation transformed the medium. Serial Productions is the maker of the award-winning blockbuster podcasts “Serial” and “S-Town,” with more than 743 million total downloads. In previous seasons, “Serial” investigated a murder case, told the story of the court martial of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, spent a year inside Cleveland’s criminal courts and went to the Guantánamo detention camp.

In July 2020, Serial Productions became part of The New York Times Company. Together they have launched several shows, including “Nice White Parents,” a chart-topping series about the powerful forces shaping public schools; “The Improvement Association,” a captivating true story about election fraud; “The Trojan Horse Affair,” an investigative series about the mystery behind a scandal that rocked Britain; “We Were Three,” an intimate look at how Covid affected one family; “The Coldest Case in Laramie,” a limited series confronting conflicting stories behind a decades-old unsolved homicide case; “The Retrievals,” a textured story about the treatment of women in medical settings and “The Retrievals, Season 2,” an intimate, character-driven investigation on the widespread issue of severe pain felt during C-sections; “The Kids of Rutherford County,” a narrative series produced in partnership with ProPublica and WPLN Nashville Public Radio that was a winner of a 2023 George Polk award for investigative reporting in podcasting; “The Good Whale,” a genre-bending tale about the most famous orca in history; “The Preventionist,” a series chronicling the investigation of a problematic doctor in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley; “The Idiot,” an epic story of a crime that changed one family; and “The last 12 Weeks,” a five-part series produced in collaboration with The Marshall Project.

The New York Times Metro desk has become a destination for deeply reported narrative storytelling and investigations, winning the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news for its coverage of the prostitution scandal that forced the resignation of then-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer. In 2025, Metro’s Jan Ransom won a George Polk Award for Justice Reporting for her investigation into inmate mistreatment in New York prisons. The desk's staff was named a 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Breaking News Reporting on a deadly fire in the Bronx.

Acast today announces Places, Dahlingz!, an all-new weekly comedy series hosted by Tony, Emmy, and Grammy winner Billy Porter, Emmy winner Leslie Jones, and New York Times bestselling author and comedian Phoebe Robinson, produced by Acast Productions.

Spanning a 48-episode inaugural season, Places, Dahlingz! brings together three distinct perspectives - theater icon Porter, theater skeptic Jones, and theater convert Robinson - for a hilarious, unfiltered exploration of live performance. Part celebrity interview series and part creative social experiment, each episode sees the trio sit down with Broadway’s biggest stars, including Shoshana Bean, Ariana DeBose, Renée Elise Goldsberry, and more. At the end of each conversation, guests contribute a prompt, line, or musical seed that the hosts and writers will compile into an original one-act show, culminating in a live finale performance and a recorded table read.

Places, Dahlingz! is available in audio and video. Backed by Acast’s global sales operation, the podcast offers brands tailored monetization opportunities, including premium host-read integrations, title sponsorships, bespoke video content, and live event activations.

“Theater should never be precious or exclusionary. It should be a celebration,” said Billy Porter. “Joining Leslie and Phoebe to build a brand-new show from scratch alongside our guest stars is going to be pure electric chaos, and I can’t wait for audiences to join us every week.”

“I love a live audience as a performer and the electricity that comes from being in the moment,” said Leslie Jones. “So when Billy and Phoebe said we were going to make our own show from guest prompts, I knew I had to be there to have fun, create and manage some chaos, and give my honest opinions.”

“As someone who has always loved the theater, getting to kiki with Broadway icons is ICONIC. Sharing my many thoughts and rants—and getting to perform alongside the wildly talented Billy and Leslie—is messy fun, a dream come true, and a surefire way to earn some brownie points with my parents,” said Phoebe Robinson. “Acast Productions has been an incredible partner in bringing this wild concept to life, blending interviews with live creative performance to create a multi-platform experience for audio and video audiences. Billy, Leslie, and I are thrilled to shake up the podcast space and bring our own unique spin to the format.”

Places, Dahlingz! is co-created by Evan Trevor Thompson, Rachel Borders, and Jeff Kasanoff, who are also executive producers alongside Jenny Kaplan, Emily Rudder, Phoebe Robinson, Billy Porter, Leslie Jones, and DJ Gugenheim. The show is an Acast Originals production made in collaboration with Tiny Reparations and Incognegro.

Acast Productions is a full-service creative production team, developing original slate programming and strategic partner shows, including two flagship Washington Post podcasts: Life Hax with Carolyn Hax and Shane O'Neill, and Dollars & Sense with Michelle Singletary.

The official trailer for Places, Dahlingz! premieres on October 22, with the debut episode launching across all major podcast listening and viewing platforms on Thursday, November 5. Follow @placesdahlingz on Instagram and TikTok for exclusive video clips, behind-the-scenes content, and guest announcements.

The Canadian podcast landscape has been growing steadily but continues to have gaps—especially when it comes to networks. There’s a disconnect between independent creators and major media outlets that produce podcasts.

The Walrus is going to change that.

In spring 2027, The Walrus will launch a new podcast network designed to elevate local voices and help build a more connected podcast industry across the country.

“The old adage ‘if you build it, they will come’ does not apply to the podcasting landscape,” says Amanda Cupido, the executive podcast advisor at The Walrus. “There are so many incredible podcasts being made in Canada that people don’t know about. Our network will help ensure they’re being heard.”

The Walrus Podcast Network will include a new flagship show from the media organisation, plus a slate of carefully selected independent podcasts that align with The Walrus’s effort to spark conversation on matters vital to Canada.

According to the 2025 Canadian Podcast Listener report, 46% of Canadian adults (18+) listen to podcasts each month. Meanwhile, only 43% of that listening is spent on Canadian-produced shows. The Walrus Podcast Network aims to help push that statistic to surpass the 50% mark.

The network will not only serve audiences and creators but it will also welcome advertisers who are looking to reach local audiences. The Walrus will be selling custom-created ads for clients looking for innovative and creative approaches to reaching Canadian audiences through podcasting.

“Across the country, every industry is being called to ‘support local.’ It’s time for that sentiment to extend to podcasting,” says Cupido.

The network will be hosted on the platform Acast, and creators will enter a revenue-sharing model with The Walrus, with all profits being re-invested in fact-based journalism.

The Walrus is inviting Canadian podcast creators to consider submitting their podcast to be part of the network by Monday, November 30. Read more details here.

“We’re excited to welcome Kim to New York Public Radio,” said LaFontaine E. Oliver, Interim President and Executive Chair. “Over three decades, Kim has helped some of the country’s most respected cultural institutions secure transformative gifts, grow their donor bases, and build sustainable and enduring fundraising operations. She knows how to connect the stories of cherished institutions to the people that power them, and we are thrilled to welcome Kim to this organization’s excellent team as they continue to reach and cultivate new and existing loyal supporters throughout New York and beyond.”

As CDO, Watson will be responsible for increasing philanthropic support from all sources, overseeing member, donor and institutional giving. Among her key priorities will be building robust and sustainable major, principal and transformative gifts programs from individual and institutional donors and driving membership growth. As NYPR continues to evolve, Watson will also work to expand access to the organization’s loyal and generationally diverse donors through increased digital initiatives, live events and more.

Watson joins NYPR from her current role as a strategic advisor to non-profit institutions, with a specialty in arts and cultural institutions. She has a strong background in working with leadership teams at top-tier organizations to secure transformative gifts and sponsorships, strengthen boards, build organizational fundraising capacity and guide capital campaigns and special initiatives. Before becoming an advisor, Watson held leadership roles in development at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the High Museum of Art.

“I’m looking forward to working with the team as NYPR continues to grow its impact,” said Watson. “I've always believed in the power of arts and culture, and in the role journalism and storytelling play in helping us understand the world and one another. I can’t think of a more important mission than making these stories and perspectives accessible to everyone.”

Watson’s history working with cultural institutions comes at a time when NYPR is expanding its cultural offerings through new programs and an expanded schedule of live events in The Greene Space and around New York City. Additional upcoming events include NYPR’s annual gala, taking place on November 17, 2026 at The Glasshouse; Democracy Dialogues, a new live event series that examines the state of democracy and the essential role that journalism, free expression and an informed public play in sustaining it; In Conversation: The Affordability Series, a series of panel discussions on important issues hosted by the WNYC/Gothamist newsroom; and All Of It with Alison Stewart’s “Get Lit” book club talks and live performance series, in partnership with the New York Public Library.

Nomono is releasing ambience control in Nomono Studio Cloud, its cloud editing platform. Sound Capsule recordings now open with the ambience as a separate track. This is the room sound captured by the Capsule's Space Recorder. Creators can raise it to immerse listeners in the room, or lower it for a close, studio-style sound.

New per-track mixing lets creators set the level of the room recorded by the Sound Capsule's Space Recorder, a dedicated 8-capsule ambisonic microphone. Nomono is the only podcast system that records the room as its own track, instead of pulling it out of the voices with AI.

Ambience control is part of Nomono's new per-track editing, which went live for users on 17 September. Every creator can now:

• See every track. Each speaker's track takes the color of their Nomono microphone, and the mix view highlights the active speaker.
• Adjust levels. Use a volume slider, or add volume points to shape levels over time.
• Mute and solo. Pull a track out of the mix, or listen to one track on its own.

"Other tools try to pull the room out of your voice track. The Sound Capsule records it," said Owen Grover, GM, U.S. Market, Nomono. "Now creators decide how much of that room listeners hear. They can make it intimate, immersive, or anywhere in between. And they don't need an audio engineer to do it."

Multitrack mixing is standard in DAWs and podcast editing tools. Some of these tools also use AI to separate background sound from the voice recording. The Sound Capsule records the room directly, with its Space Recorder. Creators get a real ambience track to work with, not an estimate.

This matters most for video podcasts. When creators pair Nomono audio with video through Nomono's Audio/Video Sync, fully enhanced audio can sound like a studio even when the picture shows a café, a stage, or a living room. The ambience track lets creators match the sound to what viewers see.

Tracks stay locked to each other. Creators can't cut, trim, or move a track independently. This keeps every track in sync and protects audio quality, because the Space Recorder also picks up the speakers' voices.

The tool is available free on all Nomono Studio plans, including the Free plan.

Disctopia, the creator-first streaming and distribution platform, today announced that New Rockstars, the pop-culture commentary studio, has begun streaming its catalogue on Disctopia — not instead of anywhere else, but in addition to everywhere the studio already publishes.

That distinction is the point. Disctopia is building for a shift already well underway: creators are no longer choosing a single home for their work, and the categories the industry uses to sort that work have stopped describing it.

The definitions stopped holding

The argument about what counts as a podcast is over, and nobody won. A single piece of work is now an audio episode, a video episode, a vertical clip, a feed item, and a search result — simultaneously. Platforms have spent the past year quietly redefining what counts as a play, a view, and a podcast, and no two of those definitions agree. Creators are the ones left answering a question that no longer has a useful answer: which one are you?

Disctopia’s position is that the question is the wrong one. The platform has carried video alongside audio since 2022, and treats a show as whatever its creator makes it — audio, video, or both, published once and shaped for wherever it lands.

Additional homes, not replacements

The New Rockstars agreement is non-exclusive by design. The studio retains full ownership of its work and continues publishing everywhere it already does. Disctopia serves pre-roll advertising against the catalogue and returns 70 percent of net advertising revenue to the studio, with monthly reporting and payouts.

"Disctopia is becoming the infrastructure the creator economy runs on. The New Rockstars partnership is what that looks like in practice — a studio that keeps its ownership, keeps its audience everywhere it already is, and keeps the majority of what its work earns. We did not ask them to leave anywhere or to call their work something it isn’t. This is just the beginning." — said Patrick Hill, Founder and CEO of Disctopia.

"New Rockstars is excited to work with Disctopia to distribute our content. We’re very proud of our work and want it to find people where they are. We think the Disctopia experience is going to be a good one for new and existing fans of our work." — said Zach Huddleston, General Manager of New Rockstars.

Built for any stage of a creator’s journey

The terms offered to New Rockstars are not a bespoke arrangement for a large studio. The same structure is available to a creator publishing a first episode: keep ownership, keep publishing elsewhere, and earn the majority of what the work generates. Disctopia’s position is that a platform should be useful at the beginning of a career and still useful a decade in, rather than asking creators to trade independence for reach.

That shows up in the product as much as the paperwork. During onboarding, Disctopia removed the weekly upload ceiling on partner accounts after New Rockstars’ post-production team reached it mid-delivery — a change now live for every partner account.

Disctopia also recently activated automatic clip generation across the platform. When a creator uploads an episode, Disctopia produces shareable vertical clips with captions burned in. Audio-only shows receive a generated video treatment built from cover art and waveform, so a podcast recorded without cameras still has something to post — one upload, shaped for whichever surface the audience is actually on.

The Hollywood Creative Alliance announced today the nominees for the 2026 Astra Podcast Awards, recognizing a diverse range of voices and storytelling across 16 categories. All podcasts nominated today are eligible for the Podcast of the Year Award. 

The 2026 Astra Podcast Awards will take place on Wednesday, November 11, 2026 at The Garland Hotel in Studio City. Tickets for the ceremony are now available and can be purchased by visiting AstraPodcastAwards.com 

Among this year’s nominees are Good Hang with Amy Poehler, Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, Call Her Daddy, SmartLess, Crime Junkie, and The Daily. The nominations span beauty and fashion, books, comedy, family and parenting, film, gaming, health and wellness, pop culture, science, scripted storytelling, sports, topical news, true crime, and television.

From candid celebrity conversations and film commentary to immersive fiction and thought-provoking journalism, the nominees reflect the creativity and breadth of podcasting.

The complete list of nominees can be found below: 

Podcasts Detail

Best Beauty & Fashion Podcast

• Breaking Beauty
• Gloss Angeles
• Let’s Get Dressed
• The Skin Club Podcast

Best Book Podcast

• Booked on Fantasy
• Fantasy Fangirls
• It Was A Book First
• The Book Club

Best Celebrity Podcast

• Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
• Dear Chelsea
• Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
• Good Hang with Amy Poehler

Best Comedy Podcast

• Call Her Daddy
• SmartLess
• Take Your Shoes Off with Rick Glassman
• This Past Weekend with Theo Von

Best Family & Parenting Podcast

• Always Here
• Newsicle
• Good Inside
• This is So Awkward

Best Film Podcast

• 2 Black Guys Talk Godzilla
• Filmspotting
• Happy Sad Confused with Josh Horowitz
• You Must Remember This

Best Game Podcast

• Critical Role Podcast
• Giant Bombcast
• No Chit Chat Trivia
• Retronauts

Best Health & Wellness Podcast

• Choosing Joy
• In Heels with Keni Silva
• Tony Mantor: Why Not Me?
• Well to Do with Andi Lew

Best Member Podcast

• Film Talk With AJ Dean
• Hallmarkies
• United By Rice
• Visibility Ultd.

Best Pop Culture Podcast

• Literally! With Rob Lowe
• Pop Culture Happy Hour
• The Black Guy Who Tips
• The Toast

Best Science Podcast

• DoctoRx Unscripted
• Huge if True with Cleo Abram
• Stuff to Blow Your Mind
• The Rest is Science

Best Scripted Podcast

• Midnight Burger
• Table Read
• The Dragoning
• Violet’s Shadow Murder Mysteries

Best Sports Podcast

• Born To The Game
• Pardon My Take
• The Bill Simmons Podcast
• The Jenkins & Jonez Podcast

Best Topical News Podcast

• 404 Media Podcast
• Interesting Things with JC
• The AI Chatbot Drag Race
• The Daily

Best True Crime Podcast

• Black True Crime
• Crime Junkie
• Love Trapped
• My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

Best TV Podcast

• Pod Meets World
• That’s Messed Up: An SVU Podcast
• The Buzz - BuzzWorthy Radio
• The Greatest Generation

About The Astra Awards:

The Astra Awards recognize and celebrate the best in entertainment. Winners are selected by members of the Hollywood Creative Alliance, a membership organization comprising critics, entertainment journalists, content creators, industry insiders, and creatives who share a passion for honoring excellence in entertainment.

For more information, please visit TheAstras.com or follow us on social media:

X: @TheAstraAwards

Facebook: @TheAstraAwards

Instagram: @hollywoodcreativealliance

YouTube: @TheAstraAwards

TikTok: @TheAstraAwards

True Native Media announced that Afford Anything, the award-winning personal finance podcast created and hosted by Paula Pant, has joined its roster for advertising representation.

At the heart of Afford Anything is a simple idea: you can afford anything, but not everything. Over the course of more than 45 million downloads, Pant has built that philosophy into a trusted platform for conversations about money, investing, financial independence, entrepreneurship, real estate, and the choices that shape how people spend their time and resources.

Rather than focusing solely on traditional personal finance advice, Afford Anything explores the psychology and decision-making behind building a meaningful life. Pant brings economists, investors, entrepreneurs, authors, researchers, and other leading thinkers into conversations designed to help listeners make smarter, more intentional decisions about their money and their future.

Afford Anything joins True Native Media following several years with the Cumulus Podcast Network, where it had been represented since 2022.

"Afford Anything represents so much of what we look for in a partnership at True Native Media," said Heather Osgood, Founder and CEO of True Native Media. "Paula has built an exceptional brand around a clear point of view, and she's earned a level of trust with her audience that can't be manufactured. We're incredibly excited to work alongside her, build on the strong foundation she's created, and bring thoughtful brand partnerships to an audience that is deeply invested in the conversations she's leading."

"I've always been intentional about how Afford Anything grows and the partners we bring into the world we've built around the show," said Paula Pant, creator and host of Afford Anything. "As we enter this next chapter, I wanted a team that understands the value of the relationship we have with our audience and shares our approach to thoughtful, long-term partnerships. I'm excited to work with True Native Media on what's ahead."

Pant is an award-winning journalist, speaker, investor, and entrepreneur whose work has made her a prominent voice in financial independence and personal finance. Through Afford Anything, she challenges audiences to think beyond conventional definitions of wealth and consider how money can be used as a tool to create greater freedom, flexibility, and choice.

The addition of Afford Anything comes as True Native Media continues to expand its roster of established creators and deepen its work with shows that pair significant audience reach with strong creator-listener relationships. 

Afford Anything is available across all major podcast platforms and is now represented by True Native Media for advertising and sponsorship opportunities.

SemaBOX today published the Creative Africa Intelligence Report 2026: Podcasting 2025/26, “Value created. Value returned.”, a valuation of African podcast content on YouTube and Spotify. The report concludes that African podcast content is a commercially undervalued asset rather than an underperforming one. The report was launched in Nairobi in partnership with Baraza Media Lab.

The report analyses 330 pieces of content, made up of 227 YouTube videos and 103 Spotify episodes published between June 2025 and July 2026. Using the advertising rates available in each market, it estimates that the sample generated more than $0.9 million in advertising value. If the same audience attention were priced at the higher rates paid in markets such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, it would be worth more than $2.3 million. The report calls this difference of roughly $1.4 million the geography discount: the reduction in commercial value that results from where an audience or creator is located, rather than from the quality of the content.

The findings show that African content performs strongly even as it is priced lower. The YouTube sample recorded a weighted engagement rate of 2.75%, compared with a benchmark of 1.5% to 2.2% in higher-paying markets, which means engagement was between 25% and 83% higher. More than 65% of the YouTube videos analysed run for 60 to 120 minutes, and more than 68% of the top-performing shows distribute their content in both video and audio formats. Even so, the sample’s blended advertising rate is about 71% lower than the comparator. The size of the discount also varies sharply by market. It is about twofold in South Africa and about sevenfold in Nigeria and Kenya. It reaches almost elevenfold in Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Senegal and Egypt, where the report applies a shared fallback rate because no reliable country-specific benchmark exists.

Many African creators also cannot reach platform revenue in the first place. During the study period, Spotify’s Partner Program was unavailable in every African market, and YouTube’s Partner Program was available in only 13 of Africa’s 54 countries. Under platform revenue-share terms, roughly half of the modelled advertising value would go to creators. At higher-market rates, the report estimates that the same content could fund about 890 income-equivalents of $100 a month over the 14-month study period, compared with about 352 at current rates, without a single additional view. The report warns that the gap is likely to widen, because African podcast audiences are growing by an estimated 20% to 28% a year while the infrastructure to monetise them is growing by only 7% to 14%.

“African creators are producing digital media that rivals global competitors in audience commitment and attention depth, yet they are not receiving the recognition or revenue they are due because of structural barriers,” said Dan Aceda, Founder and CEO of SemaBOX. “The geography discount is our biggest challenge, but it is also our greatest opportunity. It is a valuation gap, and for global advertisers, investors and ad-tech developers, closing it offers a rare entry point into a fast-growing digital audio market.”

Baraza Media Lab, a partner in the launch, said the report reflects the kind of institution-building the African creative sector needs.

“African stories deserve African agency. And African creativity deserves a fair return. That conviction sits at the heart of Baraza Media Lab’s work,” said Eric Kinaga, Executive Director of Baraza Media Lab. “We believe that African media and creative communities need more than occasional opportunities to tell their stories. They need spaces where ideas can be tested before they are profitable, where experimentation is encouraged before success is guaranteed, and where emerging institutions can find the support to become institutions of consequence. SemaBOX is living proof of what happens when we take that responsibility seriously.”

The report directs its recommendations to several groups. It encourages global brands and agencies to include African podcasts in their media shortlists and to test host-read campaigns against measurable outcomes such as completed views, referral traffic and conversion. It urges investors to prioritise the infrastructure that connects content to advertising demand, including dynamic ad insertion, audience measurement, catalogue aggregation and creator payment systems, and to test these investments through measurable pilots. It calls on YouTube and Spotify to widen monetisation access in Africa, including a phased Spotify Partner Program pilot in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, and to publish country-level market indicators. It also asks policymakers to set market-transparency standards for advertising rates, fill rates and creator payouts, and to support local advertising technology and payment systems.

The report also offers a wider view of the market. It models Africa’s podcast output at about 710,000 publications a year, based on an estimated 10,000 open RSS feeds and 20,000 YouTube channels, though this figure has not been deduplicated and is a scenario rather than a measured total. It places the Middle East and Africa digital audio market at $1.37 billion in 2024/25, rising to $7.99 billion by 2030, although that combined figure does not show how much of the revenue comes from Africa.

The full Creative Africa Intelligence Report 2026 is available to download at https://semabox.africa/cair

The science and tech media company Kaleidoscope today announced the launch of The Builders with Walter Isaacson, a new podcast featuring in-depth conversations with some of the most consequential figures in AI and technology. Debuting today, the series includes conversations with Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Fei-Fei Li, Dario and Daniela Amodei, Alex Karp, Palmer Luckey and other leading entrepreneurs, scientists, and technologists. The show is produced in partnership with Ramp, and distributed by iHeartPodcasts, the No. 1 podcast publisher globally according to Podtrac.

In each episode, Isaacson examines the ideas, ambitions, and decisions behind the AI revolution, from its impact on jobs and misinformation to the possibility of superintelligent machines. At the heart of the series are larger questions: What does it mean to build technology with the power to reshape society? And who gets to decide where it takes us?

Walter Isaacson’s definitive biographies have taken readers inside the minds of some of history’s most influential figures, from Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein to Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. Now, with The Builders, he brings that same curiosity and journalistic rigour to podcasting, where conversation allows him to explore—and challenge in real time—the ideas of the visionaries building our future.

“AI is reshaping our world at breathtaking speed. But behind the technology, real human beings are making choices about what our future will look like, how we’ll work and live, and whose vision will shape what comes next,” said Isaacson.

“We started Kaleidoscope because the world’s most important ideas deserve to be told with awe, and  wonder, while acknowledging the consequences,” said Kaleidoscope cofounders Oz Woloshyn and Mangesh Hattikudur. “We’re creating podcasts for an audience that doesn’t want to watch the future. They want a stake in it.”

The Builders follows Kaleidoscope’s previous collaboration with Isaacson, On Musk, a four-part series that reached No. 1 on the Apple Podcasts charts and featured Isaacson’s behind-the-scenes stories from his biography of Elon Musk.

New episodes of The Builders will be released weekly, featuring newsmaking guests from the worlds of technology and AI.

For more information, visit The Builders website at  https://www.kaleidoscope.nyc/builders

The Midnight Mystery today announced that Season 2 of National Emergency, the independent psychological horror audio drama, premieres October 20, 2026 on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and all major podcast platforms.

Season 1 followed Owen Coleman, an ex-prisoner turned school bus driver, through a series of "Mandatory Directives": emergency broadcasts that give strict survival instructions, where one mistake can mean disappearing for good. With no network backing, the show climbed into the top 50 Fiction podcasts on Spotify and Apple Podcasts in the US, UK and Australia, and holds a 4.8 rating on Spotify and 4.7 on Apple Podcasts.

Season 2 picks up where Season 1 left off. Details of the story are being kept under wraps until release.

"I can't say much about Season 2 without giving it away, but it goes places Season 1 only hinted at," said creator Dean Smyth. "We're never going to explain where the broadcasts come from. That mystery is the whole engine of the show."

The six-episode season stars Michael Ursa as Owen Coleman, Maganda Marie as Lisa Parks, Amelia Monarch as Detective Roy Hutchins and Molly St. Louis as Special Agent Sarah Chen, with Jordan Jasmer and Robyn Unger as Dan and Erica.

About National Emergency National Emergency is a psychological horror audio drama written, directed, edited and sound designed by Dean Smyth, an award-winning short horror filmmaker. It is produced by The Midnight Mystery, an independent audio drama network whose other series include Bunker 8, End of the Loop and Midnight Radio.

Half of all Australians aged 15 and over (10.3 million people) are now regular monthly podcast consumers, according to PodPoll 26, Australia’s most comprehensive annual survey into podcast consumption habits, released by podcast production house Deadset Studios and market research firm Insightfully.

This figure continues a run of consistent growth; from 39% in 2024, to 47% in 2025, and now 50%. Podcasts are also the fastest-growing audio category tracked in the survey.

“This growth in podcast consumption isn’t evenly spread. It’s being driven disproportionately by Millennials with 71% of them regular consumers of podcasts and by men aged 35–54, whose listenership jumped from 59% to 71% in a single year. For anyone planning campaigns or considering a podcast, that’s a signal to look beyond the usual ‘young listener’ narrative when thinking about who’s actually driving this uptick,” says Kellie Riordan, director of Deadset Studios.

“We’re no longer talking about an emerging medium. Half the country is consuming podcasts at least monthly. And critically for advertisers and brands, this audience doesn’t just passively consume the content, they act on what they hear. PodPoll 26 found that after listening, many consumers go on to search for a topic, buy a product, or take action for a cause,” added Leanne White, Managing Director at Insightfully.

The survey also found:

• Among regular consumers, YouTube’s share of podcast consumption has grown from 44% to 55% in a year, while one in ten podcast consumers now say they watch podcasts rather than listen
• Despite the rise of video however, 60% of regular consumers still say they prefer to listen to podcasts than watch them
• The majority of listeners say they seek out podcasts specifically because they don’t require a screen
• Podcast listeners are highly action-oriented: 45% have searched online after hearing something on a podcast, and 19% have purchased a product as a result
• Crime, news and current affairs, and comedy remain the nation’s most-consumed genres, but government and politics is now growing faster than any of them
• Podcasts are the most trusted media channel among podcast consumers, with 71% saying they trust the medium ahead of social media (34%) radio (62%), television (57%) and YouTube (56%).

“What’s striking this year is the extent to which trust has become podcasting’s defining advantage,” says Leanne White. “In a media environment where audiences are increasingly sceptical of what they consume online, podcasts are cutting through because audiences feel like they know and trust the voice in their ears and have that parasocial relationship with hosts.”

PodPoll 26 also found screen-free consumption is a genuine motivator: 70% of listeners say they actively seek podcasts out because they don’t require a screen. “That’s a useful counter to the assumption that younger audiences are purely video-led. For brands and producers, it’s a reminder that a strong audio-only product still reaches a large, loyal, screen-fatigued audience, and that investing solely in video risks missing them entirely,” says Kellie Riordan.

As the United States approaches the 2026 midterm elections, new research from Sounds Profitable, the trade association for the podcast industry, reveals the potential influence of podcast appearances on voter preferences. According to the findings, one in four likely voters who consume podcasts monthly say a candidate's appearance could make them more likely to vote for that candidate, while 9% say it could make them less likely. The findings are nearly identical among weekly podcast consumers, with 26% reporting a potential positive influence and 8% reporting a negative one.

The findings, released as part of The Podcast Landscape 2026, suggest that podcasts have become an increasingly relevant channel for political candidates seeking to connect with voters, with opportunities extending far beyond traditional political news and commentary programming.

Notably, the potential influence of podcast appearances extends well beyond political programming. Likely voters who do not consume political talk podcasts are just as likely as political-talk listeners to say an appearance could make them more likely to support a candidate, with both groups reporting 25%. Those who do not listen to political talk represent 70% of likely voting monthly podcast consumers, suggesting candidates may have opportunities to reach receptive voters through entertainment, lifestyle, sports, and other nonpolitical programming.

The research also suggests that the potential influence of podcast appearances is not limited to one political party. Among likely Republican voters, 21% say a candidate's podcast appearance could make them more likely to vote for that candidate, compared with 19% of likely Democratic voters. Independents appear less receptive, with 11% reporting the same potential influence.

“The 2024 presidential election was dubbed the ‘podcast election,’ and we saw firsthand how candidates could reach voters through shows outside traditional political and news programming. Two years later, we now have data that reinforces what many observed during that election: the potential influence of podcasting extends far beyond political content,” said Tom Webster, Partner at Sounds Profitable. “One in four likely voters who consume podcasts say a candidate's appearance could make them more likely to vote for that candidate, with those who don't listen to political talk shows reporting the same potential influence as those who do. This speaks to the extraordinary potential of the medium as a whole to shape political conversations and voter perceptions.”

Podcast consumers are also increasingly comfortable with politicians appearing on their favorite shows. Six in ten monthly podcast consumers (60%) say it is appropriate for politicians to appear on podcasts, up from 56% in 2025. Among the broader U.S. adult population, 48% consider such appearances appropriate, compared to 10% who say they are inappropriate.

Political talk itself remains a significant category within podcasting, ranking among the medium's five largest genres. Its audience is also nearly evenly divided along party lines, with Democrats representing 36% of political talk podcast consumers and Republicans accounting for 35%.

Taken together, the findings illustrate the growing relevance of podcasts in political communication. While political talk programming continues to attract substantial audiences across party lines, candidates looking to engage potential voters may find equally receptive audiences across the broader podcast landscape.

The findings are part of The Podcast Landscape 2026, Sounds Profitable's annual study of podcast consumption in the United States, based on a nationally representative survey of 5,473 U.S. adults.

The Podcast Landscape is now available to download here.

The inaugural SONARR Awards was held last night in Sydney, hosted by Alexei Toliopoulos and bringing leading names from Australia’s audio industry together for a gala dinner celebrating the year’s best work. The debut set a new benchmark for how the industry is recognised: inclusive, detailed and creatively presented.

Opening the night, SONARR founder Pariya Taherzadeh said: “We started it because audio in this country needed a fresh look: a new way of seeing it, a new way of being heard, and quite literally, a new way of being recognised. All of that requires us to re-imagine, and we wanted everyone to be part of the re-imagining. Producers, composers, writers, event planners, creators from all walks of life. Podcast, radio, audiobook and voice-over, and all of them are built on the same two things: sound and narrative.”

The awards recognised not only well-known works and people, but also corners of the industry that rarely get a spotlight.

Winners from across the industry

Trophies were presented by representatives from AFTRS, Podnews, ABC, RØDE, Original Audio, Podcast Workers Australia, Bedou and the Australian Association of Voice Actors (AAVA), alongside independent creators including Farz Edraki and First Nations Gamilaroi, media personality Matty Mills.

The grand award of the night, SONARR of the Year, went to A Cyclone for Christmas by Caddie Brain, produced for the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. SONARR also distributed a $10,000 prize pool, with $5,000 going to the top independent winner, A Cyclone for Christmas, and $5,000 to the top commercial winner, Rhys Gunter, who won the Producer Excellence Award.

Of the 33 awards presented, 22 went to independent creators and 11 to commercial productions. Marc Fennell won four awards: three for No One Saw It Coming with Marc Fennell (ABC Radio National) and the CALD Creator Award. We Used to be Journos (Ette Media) won two, and SBS Audio won two, including Network Excellence.

SONARR held the standard firmly. Some categories were presented with only one or two finalists, because few entries met the bar. One category, Marketing for Audio, received no entries. SONARR acknowledged this openly and invited the industry to submit work for the 2027 awards.

The evening was full of powerful speeches, alongside good food, conversation and networking.

A new fixture for the calendar

With the inaugural event complete, Australian audio now has an annual occasion to look forward to and to be recognised for a full year of work, to catch up with peers, and to celebrate the late-night edits and long hours behind the audio Australians listen to every day.

The SONARR Awards was supported by AFTRS, RODE, Original Audio and AAVA.

Full list of winners

Podcasts Detail

SOUND pillar

• Audio Production Award: Conspiracy: War on the Waterfront - Rewind - ABC Radio National (Radio, Commercial)
• Sound Design and Atmosphere Award: A Cyclone for Christmas - Caddie Brain - Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (Radio, Indie)
• Original Sonic Identity Award: Shortwave - Ian Moorhead - Darwin Festival and ABC Radio Darwin (Radio, Indie)

NARRATIVE pillar

• AFTRS Narrative Excellence Award: No One Saw It Coming with Marc Fennell - Marc Fennell - ABC Radio National (Podcast, Commercial)
• Audio Drama Award: The Glam Gizmo - Gizmo Verse (Podcast, Indie)
• Investigative and Documentary Award: Dear Rachelle - True Crime Australia - News Corp Australia (Podcast, Commercial)
• Cultural and Social Insight Award: voicesofwomen's podcast - Lliane Clarke (Podcast, Indie)
• News and Public Discourse Award: We Used to be Journos - Ette Media (Podcast, Indie)
• Knowledge and Learning Award: No One Saw It Coming with Marc Fennell - Marc Fennell - ABC Radio National (Podcast, Commercial)
• STEM Award: Nocturnal Worlds - Audiocraft (Podcast, Indie)
• Business and Entrepreneurship Award: Minted Kids - Nicole Pedersen-McKinnon - F+K Media (Podcast, Indie)
• Health and Wellbeing Award: Breaking Taboos: Older Australians Talk About Mental Health - Dr Helene Thomas, Dr Mia Lindgren, Professor Kate Burridge (Podcast, Indie)
• Entertainment and Lifestyle Award: The World Cup, But Not Really - SBS Audio (Podcast, Commercial)
• Comedy Award: Tony Martin’s Sizzletown - Pots and Pans (Podcast, Indie)
• Youth and Family Award: Fluff ’n’ Stuff - Pevan & Sarah (Podcast, Commercial)
• Arts and Culture Award: No One Saw It Coming with Marc Fennell - Marc Fennell - ABC Radio National (Podcast, Commercial)
• Music Award: Cassette Culture - Martin Franklin (Podcast, Indie)

VOICE pillar

• Indie Creator Award: Kyla Brettle (Podcast, Indie)
• First Nations Creator Award: Sajarn Stow (Radio, Indie)
• Female Creator Award: Julia Rangiheuea (Podcast, Indie)
• LGBTQA+ Creator Award: Laura Brierley Newton (Podcast, Indie)
• CALD Creator Award: Marc Fennell (Podcast, Indie)
• Student Creator Award: Felicity Weaver - AFTRS (Podcast, Indie)
• Host / Presenter Excellence Award: Ashlynne McGhee (Podcast, Indie)
• Producer Excellence Award: Rhys Gunter (Podcast, Commercial)
• Performance / Acting Excellence Award: Colin Cassidy (Voice-Over, Indie)
• Network Excellence Award: SBS Audio (Podcast and Radio, Commercial)

IMPACT pillar

• Community Wave Maker Award: Soil: Rewilding the Underground - Jessica Hamilton (Podcast, Indie)
• Innovation Award: The Dynamic Blood Supply Audio System - NOVA Entertainment and Original Audio - Red Cross Australia: Lifeblood (Radio, Commercial)
• Audience Connection Award: We Used to be Journos - Ette Media (Podcast, Indie)

Vision pillar

• Video for Audio Award: Wiggle Talk - A Podcast for Parents - The Wiggles (Podcast, Commercial)
• Visual Identity Award: Real Made Up Stories - Coequal (Podcast, Indie)
• Events for Audio Award: DomeFest - Dome and Finely Tuned (Podcast, Indie)

Top pillar winners

• SOUND: A Cyclone for Christmas - Caddie Brain - Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (Radio, Indie)
• NARRATIVE: Dear Rachelle - True Crime Australia - News Corp Australia (Podcast, Commercial)
• VOICE: Rhys Gunter (Podcast, Commercial)
• IMPACT: The Dynamic Blood Supply Audio System - NOVA Entertainment and Original Audio - Red Cross Australia: Lifeblood (Radio, Commercial)
• VISION: Real Made Up Stories - Coequal (Podcast, Indie)

Cash Prize Winners ($5,000 each)

• Independent: A Cyclone for Christmas - Caddie Brain - Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (Radio, Indie)
• Commercial: Rhys Gunter (Podcast, Commercial)

SONARR of the Year

• A Cyclone for Christmas - Caddie Brain - Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (Radio, Indie)

PAVE Studios, a creator-first media company whose original content spans video, audio, live experiences, and more, today announced a deal to bring two Crime House original video podcasts to Disney+ and Hulu for an exclusive window. Clues, hosted by Kaelyn Moore, streams beginning October 20, and new video podcast Mother Knows Murder, hosted by Niecy Nash (All’s Fair, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, The Rookie: Feds, Claws) and her daughter, actress Dia Nash, premieres November 9. 

The deal marks the first distribution of video podcasts from PAVE Studios on a major streaming platform, furthering the reach of these creators and their unique, premium storytelling to a broader audience. 

“We built Crime House to be a brand that travels, with creator-led podcasts that can live anywhere audiences are watching. Bringing Clues and Mother Knows Murder to Disney+ and Hulu is proof of that model, and it's the first of many places we expect these stories to go," said PAVE Studios Founder and CEO Max Cutler. “As streaming platforms increasingly look to add premium content from talented creators, PAVE is well-positioned to be a content collaborator to these companies, and we are excited to be working with Disney to bring our shows to their streaming viewers.” 

Clues debuts October 20, with new episodes each week, one day before available on other podcast platforms. Some crimes are solved by a single clue. One overlooked fingerprint, a missing puzzle piece, or a detail hiding in plain sight. _T_he 2026 Webby Award-winning Crime House Original hosted by Kaelyn Moore takes you deep into the world of notorious crimes and forensic breakthroughs.

“Clues was developed with a streaming audience in mind from day one. Our goal was to create a show with the production quality and storytelling that would stand naturally alongside other premium content on a streamer like Disney+ and Hulu,” said Moore, a breakout host and creator with a top-ranked true crime slate that also includes the award-winning Heart Starts Pounding podcast and the newly premiered Last Trace with Kaelyn Moore.

The exclusive series premiere of new weekly show, Mother Knows Murder, follows on November 9, one day prior to launching across all other podcast platforms. There's nothing quite like curling up with your mom, a snack board, and a glass of wine for a true crime case you can't put down. Each week, Niecy and Dia Nash climb into bed, turn on the TV, and dig into a real case together. 

Through these shows, PAVE Studios continues to partner with established and emerging voices to build meaningful connections with audiences via its expanding portfolio of premium original content.