July’s top podcast ad spender

• Quince is buying more podcast ads than anyone else, says Magellan AI - spending $7.5mn in July. BetterHelp and Amazon spent around $5.4mn. Meanwhile, Hero Bread, Accenture and Lululemon were the biggest movers and shakers. Magellan AI has a free webinar on Sep 10.

• Crooked Media has acquired the FiveThirtyEight politics podcast - kind of. Its founder Nate Silver sold the brand to Disney; but was laid off in 2023. The podcast podfaded in March 2025 along with the website. Variety reports that the new show will be named Still Counting, and will feature the former hosts and data journalists.

• Podcast Movement NYC’s Swapcard is up and running; so if you’ve already bought your tickets, you’ll be able to log in and make connections.

• Good news: Podbean stats seem to be getting back to normal, after rolling out a change to its stats that marked all downloads from Apple Podcasts as invalid.

• As Bloomberg reported last week, YouTube is apparently giving deals of up to $10mn to creators to not go to Netflix. The Ankler's Like & Subscribe suggests that the company is talking to around fifteen creators.

• With companies like beehiiv, Patreon and Substack adding podcast features, Acast has partnered with Kit “to help creators build and monetize their audiences across multiple formats.”

  • As an aside - Dave Jackson has compared Kit to Substack and Sendfox in his recent Podcasting Observations newsletter.
  • And Substack has added a set of new features including improvements to its podcast tools, allowing you to edit speakers within the transcript. Only one problem.

• Controversial AI-podcaster Inception Point AI rebranded earlier this month. Its new website claims: “Liquid Studios is a product of Liquify AI, the company formerly known as Inception Point AI. Same team, same infrastructure.” But is it the same team? On Inception Point AI’s website, the team was Jeanine Wright (co-founder/CEO), William Corbin (co-founder/CTO), Katie Brown (co-founder/COO), Josh Taylor (co-founder/CPO) and John Peed (CCO); but, only Wright and Taylor remain listed on the new website.

  • Recent podcast episodes from the company include the Biography Flash shows for Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, and Dean Withers - where the AI voice misleadingly poses as Withers himself. However, its show for Dolly Parton, which ends with the message “be sure to subscribe so you never miss an update on Dolly Parton”, was last updated on Aug 22.

• Amplifi Media’s Steven Goldstein writes about “where podcasting fits at Spotify”. Highlighting the ad-skipping product we spotted earlier this month, he suggests that “if one feature test in Stockholm can reprice your inventory, that is the real problem to work on.”.

People news

• Ray Harkins has left Amazon’s ART19, where he was Senior Ad Rep. “Off to another adventure shortly. Let’s go podcasts!”

Tips and tricks - with Podcast Movement NYC

Podcast News - with Airwave

With Airwave: Fast Company Daily yesterday published advice on how to make sure you don’t outlive your money. Stories, tips, and advice on how employees, managers, and businesses are working smarter, all from Fast Company and all in less than five minutes each weekday.

In a polarised world, one of the few things everyone liked was Dolly Parton, who died yesterday — but why did people feel that way? That simple question leads to a deeply personal, historical, and musical rethinking of one of America’s great icons. From 2019, WNYC’s Dolly Parton’s America won plenty of awards and plaudits: and might be worth a relisten.

Simple English News Daily has switched to Supercast for its subscription service, rather than running its own membership. That now allows ad-free and bonus episodes. The show did more than 630,000 downloads last month.

A podcast - in the Royal Opera House? Dish did it last year, and has just announced plans to do it again: this time on Sunday Nov 1. Last year the live show had special guest Jack Whitehall joined by a surprise appearance from national treasure Dame Mary Berry. This year’s guests are yet to be announced; tickets go on sale next Wednesday.

From his viral, Webby-winning Orange Tree Series, The Vic Mensa Show is new, premiering today. Fellow Chicago artist Chance the Rapper joins Vic as the first guest, with a season one lineup also featuring Durand Bernarr, Rapsody, Lena Waithe, Aja Monet, Van Lathan Jr. and more.

The Dash is new today from Lemonada Media. A brand-new original podcast from longtime friends, entrepreneurs, and media personalities, Elizabeth Chambers and Marissa Hermer, the show celebrates women while challenging outdated myths about aging, divorce, motherhood, entrepreneurship, sex, and dating.

Podcasts in the wild

A set of shows from Manchester’s Audio Always are being promoted by Amazon Music in London’s Leicester Square. Promos for these shows are also running across the Audio Always network. (Opinion: Hello, Apple Podcasts. You should be doing this too!)