Substack adds a podcast tab to its app

• Substack has launched a new podcast tab in its app: “a dedicated space where you can easily reach your existing listeners, and help new listeners find you”. The tab lists shows from Substack creators. The company tells Podnews that “creators publishing podcasts collectively earn over $200 million per year on Substack” - here’s a list of the most popular.

  • Substack has also published download and view numbers from the Organizing Things podcast, which launched last week on the platform. The first week got 10,385 downloads - “entirely organic, no paid promotion or ad spend”. What’s the secret of its success? The show’s co-host Shea Serrano is a five-time NYT best-seller, and was previously with Amazon and Wondery; and already had 128,000 subscribers to his newsletter: so that might be a factor.

• Are you measuring the success of podcast ads too soon? Magellan AI released its Q2 2026 Podcast Measurement Benchmark Report - and in it, we learn that 41% of site visits happen in the first week, and 76% by the end of the first month: so if you judge campaigns after just one week, the figures will be less than half of what the ads are really delivering.

• Spotify’s Megaphone has made another unannounced change - this time, the qualification process for new shows to join SPAN, the Spotify Audience Network. As of Sep 8, a show needs at least three published episodes before it can be submitted to SPAN. Previously, only one published episode was required, so you could publish a trailer and be able to monetise your show from the first scheduled episode - but, no longer. One creator, who posts limited-run series, told us: “having to wait to monetize halfway through the run is pretty debilitating”.

  • As with other changes that Megaphone has made recently, it is wholly undocumented; the company has repeatedly ignored any requests for comment. Perhaps creators might find a human to talk to in New York next week.

• “The fourth edition of our flagship podcasting study, The Podcast Landscape, is going to see the light of day at Podcast Movement next week, and it is going to (justifiably) cause a lot of consternation, debate, and be the catalyst for a lot of hallway conversations… what I see in the present moment is a thing I am concerned about, and I hope the industry takes it seriously.” Tom Webster teases his keynote at Podcast Movement NYC (Thu, 11.30am).

• Triton Digital has launched Demos+ Demographic Targeting. It’s a new content targeting capability built on the company’s Demos+ product, and allows advertisers to build a plan based on audience profile.

• Adam McNeal hasn’t agreed with Glenn Rubenstein about the new YouTube stats - until he realised what the argument was about. Writing in his newsletter The Roast, McNeal suggests that we’re all benefactors of a better industry with better standards - but that YouTube’s definitions are their own, and they’re willing to redefine them whenever they like.

• Released today, the Podnews Weekly Review talks with the three co-founders of creator monetisation platform Everywhere.

• We haven’t even had Podcast Movement yet, but The Podcast Show London 2027 is already running a presale, allowing you to save 20% across all pass types. The event is May 19-20.

• Who’s the best marketing and advertising startup in the UK? It’s the Bristol-based podcast and video agency Earworm, which has been named winner at the UK StartUp Awards 2026.

• The All Ireland Podcast Awards are open for entry.

People News

• Steve Wilson has finished up at Daylight Media. He joined what was then QCODE almost six years ago.

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Tips and tricks - with Podcast Movement NYC

• Back at Podcast Movement Evolutions 2024, Amy Poehler was a keynote speaker - a year before she’d started her Good Hang award-winning podcast. But she had been appearing on many other podcasts by that point: and she spoke about her love of the medium.
• Tempted to host your own podcast? Yeah, but - it can cost a fair amount to do that. We write why we do it - and why you probably shouldn’t.

Podcast News - with Airwave

With Airwave: What Should I Read Next? is the show for every reader who has ever finished a book and faced the problem of not knowing what to read next. The latest episode looks at books that foster a sense of warmth and good conversation.

Today is the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US. Every September, What Was That Like has a special episode with a guest telling their first-hand experience of that day. This year the guest is Felicia, who was at the Pentagon when the plane hit the building.

As America marks 25 years since 9/11, Caloroga Media’s Daily Comedy News with Johnny Mac has released 'Comedy After 9/11: What Happened When the Laughing Stopped’: On September 17, 2001, David Letterman came back and didn’t do a monologue. Jon Stewart came back the same night and cried on camera before becoming recognizably himself again. SNL came back September 29 with Lorne Michaels asking Rudy Giuliani if it was okay to be funny, and Giuliani delivering the best line of the night. Bill Maher said something true at the wrong moment and lost his show. Gilbert Gottfried made a 9/11 joke at the Friar’s Club three weeks later, got booed, and pivoted into the Aristocrats and won the room back. Johnny Mac, a New Yorker who was there, traces how comedy came back after the attacks, what it cost the people who pushed too early, and what the whole episode tells you about what comedy is actually for.

The latest episode of Small Town Dicks is the first episode of Firehouse Files, an upcoming show from actor and former FDNY firefighter Steve Buscemi. The episode commemorates the 25th anniversary of September 11 through an extended conversation with former FDNY Chief of Department Dan Nigro.

In the Economist Podcasts feed tomorrow: Shire Folk will reveal how a campaign in Britain waged by Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon - aka Tommy Robinson, formerly of the English Defence League - has received powerful backing and finance from global figures, including Elon Musk. The show is a timely look at how anger and resentment in parts of England has become aligned with billionaire tech money, and the global machinery of outrage.

In Gone Medieval - the image of the sword in the stone is the ultimate symbol of King Arthur, but did you know it did not exist in Arthurian legend until the year 1200? Matt Lewis is joined by Amy Jeffs to reveal how this iconic miracle was actually a late, pious invention. Discover the myth’s true, strange origins: from Bronze Age ceremonial blades buried in bogs to fairy kidnappings and subversive prophecies.

The award-winning Tumble Science Podcast for Kids is launching its 12th season today, with “Why Do T. Rexes Have Small Arms?” Every episode is a story of science discovery, starting with kids’ own curiosity and told with the help of real scientists. Tumble’s mission is to spark lifelong curiosity and build a new generation of science literate citizens.