400 UK audio businesses ask for recognition

• Over 400 UK podcasting and audio businesses have signed an open letter to the UK government demanding recognition in the Creative Industries Strategy, which could lead to funding for IP development or access to tax relief. The letter was issued by AudioUK, who also announced that the UK’s DCMS has committed to commissioning a research study to measure key data across the podcast and audio industry.

• Edison Research has been acquired by market and survey research firm SSRS. The acquisition includes the entire Edison Research team. Edison’s Larry Rosin describes SSRS as “a great and extremely like-minded research company”, which “shares Edison’s commitment to research rigor and great people”.

• Spotify has done another deal for its video podcasts - The Ringer’s shows will be available on Samsung TV Plus. The shows, which will also be on Netflix, are coming off YouTube early next year. (The graphic from Samsung says “only on Samsung TV Plus”, but this is not an exclusive).

• Spotify announced its emerging creator program’s RADAR Creators Global Class of 2025. 11 countries are represented.

• Audioboom released Q3/25 financial results. The company delivered revenue of $20.4 million and profit of $1.2 million in the quarter.

• Steven Bartlett’s FlightStory and the UK Black Business Show have launched Legacy Black: a joint venture to become the world’s leading media brand for Black entrepreneurship, business, and wealth.

• In Australia, ARN’s iHeartPodcast Network has parted company with Life Uncut, the current number 7 in the Australian Podcast Ranker. No word yet as to who made the decision, or where the show will go. ARN has an upfront on Oct 29.

• The Daily from The New York Times is pulling ahead as the #1 podcast, according to Podscribe’s “October” 2025 rankings (which contains data for September). The Charlie Kirk Show was a new entry at #9.

• The Verge’s podcasts are now available ad-free for its subscribers. We wondered who they were using to enable this - after about fifteen minutes of poking about, it looks like they’re using our current title sponsor Supporting Cast, who evidently aren’t joking when they say they let you build a complete subscriber experience directly into your website…

• The Locked On Podcast Network tells Podnews that September saw 45,691,452 listens and views for the network, including six of its ten biggest days ever.

• Further reading: The Wall Street Journal asks students about podcasts, and whether they are now a better source of news than the traditional media … Nick Quah asks “So What Was Marc Maron’s Podcast All About in the End?” … everyone’s favourite fan of AI, Inception Point AI’s Jeanine Wright speaks with CNN’s Richard Quest. (“We’ve taken a lot of steps internally to mitigate the risk of hallucination down to nearly zero”) … YouTube writes up the experience of the podcast Giggly Squad on the platform … and Signal Hill Insights posts a write-up of the Advertising Week NY “podcasting zone”.

Moves and hires

• Acast has appointed a new CFO. Anders Hägg will join the company early next year, and will also be deputy CEO - he joins from CFO roles at a variety of Swedish companies.

• Rena Ayer has been hired as Senior VP of Content & Talent Partnerships at Red Seat Ventures. She joins from SiriusXM and Audible.

• Tote bag manufacturers, rejoice - NPR has a new Chief Marketing Officer. Mishka Pitter-Armand joins from Crisis Text Line and Girl Scouts of the USA.

• Ad Results Media has hired Jess Robine as EVP, Media & Operations. She was most recently at Veritone One.

Tips & Tricks

• Rob Greenlee shares a checklist for “AI visibility” for your podcast.

• Justin Jackson shares a video telling us how he’d make his first podcast today. In the video - footage from when Justin had a giant beard. And a Blue Yeti.

Podcast News - with Airwave

New with Airwave: The Level Up Podcast w/ Paul Alex your weekly dose of mindset, money, and mission-driven motivation. It’s hosted by Paul Alex, ex-Detective turned 8-figure entrepreneur. After leaving law enforcement, he built multiple businesses helping everyday people create residual income and freedom on their own terms.

Daily Variety is new from showbiz industry publication Variety - “Variety journalists and entertainment leaders deliver business news and analysis tailored for industry insiders” is the curiously non-showbiz description.

When Aboriginal women seek help with domestic and family violence, what happens next? Mudgin-Gal Yarns is a five-part series where inner-city Aboriginal women speak openly about the systems meant to protect them: police, government, and services. What works, who fails us, and what could change? Recorded inside yarning circles at Sydney’s Mudgin-Gal Women’s Centre, the series is hosted by Ashlee Donohue and features voices rarely heard in the national conversation.

In the latest episode of Conversations with Stephen Kamugasa, journalist and author Alex Renton speaks about his book Blood Legacy: Reckoning with a Family Story of Slavery - uncovering his family’s links to British Caribbean slavery, and highlighting how history shapes present-day privilege and inequality.

In a world that’s on fire, what is the role of art? What can music actually… do? Can a song save a life? Change a law? Topple a president? Get you killed? In Fela Kuti: Fear No Man, Jad Abumrad tells the story of one of the great political awakenings in music: how a classically trained 'colonial boy’ traveled to America, in search of Africa, only to return to Nigeria and transform his sound into a battering ram against the state — creating a new musical language of resistance called Afrobeat. But when the mix of art and activism got too hot, the state pulled out its guns, and literally opened fire.