Podcast ad revenue up 20% next year, thanks to video

• Deloitte suggests that global ad revenue for “podcasts and vodcasts” will reach $5bn in 2026, up 20% year-on-year. The report suggests that consumers will also gravitate towards video - suggesting that users who watch vodcasts consume 1.5x more content than those who just listen to podcasts. The benefit of “something for your ears when your eyes are busy” is perhaps a disadvantage for advertisers - 44% of vodcast watchers say they don’t multitask when watching, compared with 29% of podcast listeners. The report came out last month, but was reported again yesterday.

• Hernan Lopez, the former CEO of Wondery, has had all charges against him dropped by the US DoJ, which is to dismiss a long-running bribery case against him. He has written about the legal process, which has taken six years. He has also spoken with Variety.

• The BBC posted year-end figures for its proprietary podcast and radio app, BBC Sounds. Podcast plays on the platform, which is only available in the UK, grew by 15%. The most listened-to podcast (based on plays) was Newscast. The corporation hasn’t broken out any play numbers for its podcasts.

• 22% of US weekly podcast consumers have heard a podcast that was narrated by an AI voice, says Edison Research. The data doesn’t say whether they liked it.

• Molly DeMellier has left Sundaze PR. She had joined as COO in May, from Acast. “A new opportunity has come my way that I can’t turn down”, she writes. A life at the circus? Professional marathon running? (No - she’ll be staying in podcasting, we hear).

• Google appears to have comprehensively broken its voice assistant for playing podcasts.

• Fountain has made improvements to its podcast app in Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

• In a paid post, The Atlantic posted its best podcasts of 2025.

• There’s now a “recently added” feeds endpoint for the Podcast Index. Dave Jones says: “I’m hoping this will help people develop tools to analyze all the newly added feeds and publish information about them, like whether they are AI slop, scam feeds, TTS, etc.”

• John McDermott: “I defy anyone to tell me this slice of pepperoni pizza is not a podcast. I don’t want to hear that pizza doesn’t have an RSS feed, because neither does Good Mythical Morning and we’re all accepting it’s the #3 Podcast because someone at YouTube said so.”

Happy holidays, if you celebrate. If you don’t - we’re back tomorrow, and every day over Christmas, because podcasting never sleeps, and nor apparently do we. Worthy of your support? Or pity?

What’s next: 2026 in podcasting

Shea Simpson, Amazon Music:

Podcasts are going to continue to grow in importance as a cultural news outlet. Podcasts are the place to break news, to update your fans, and we’re going to see even more artists and creators leaning on podcasts for their big announcements next year.

We’ll see the video space continue to evolve pretty rapidly for podcasts, both in terms of the number and types of services entering the space, as well as the hosting and distribution platforms that distribute the content. And hopefully we’ll start to see some standards emerge from all this.

Lastly, a bold prediction. 2026 is the year that Podnews Daily finally cracks the global top 20 on the podcast charts. You can do it, guys.

• Hear more in the Podnews Weekly Review

Podcast News - with Airwave

With Airwave: Have you ever wonder why barber shops have that striped pole out front? What does it mean? Is it a warning? The podcast Answer for It! doesn’t know either, but they’ll pretend they do. It’s the podcast where trivia meets comedy, facts meet improv, and where fumbling the answer for laughs is both an art and a science.