Premium subscription tool Supercast acquired

• Red Seat Ventures, part of FOX’s Tubi group, has acquired premium subscription tool Supercast. Terms weren’t given. Supercast’s top 10 podcasters gross more than $26 million per year in subscription revenue, the press release notes; paid subscriptions are a fast-growing part of the podcast ecosystem. Acast partnered with Supercast last April; Supercast is also used by Huberman Lab and This American Life.

• First look: The Ambies award ceremony this year will be hosted by Wyatt Cenac, it’s just been announced. The Emmy and WGA award-winning comedian, writer, and producer will be joined by Donwill, who will serve as the evening’s official house DJ.

  • TPA also unveiled its inaugural Vanguard Jury, a “collective of industry leaders and emerging voices dedicated to shaping and elevating the podcasting medium”, who selected the 2026 Vanguard Podcaster of the Year.

• Spotify posted its Q4/25 earnings report. The company now has more than 750mn users across the world - more added in the past quarter than ever - and 290mn paid subscribers (up 10% year-on-year). The company claims the success is due to their popular Wrapped campaign - and shared than 300mn users accessed it (which also means 400mn didn’t). By this morning, shares were up nearly +15% (but still almost a third lower than a year ago).

  • In terms of podcasting, the prepared remarks tell us that there are 530,000 video podcast shows now on Spotify (and 7mn podcasts). “Video podcast consumption has increased by more than +90%” since Jan 2025; though without absolute numbers, this isn’t too helpful. Podcasting wasn’t mentioned other than in respect to video podcasts.
  • Ad sales over all of Spotify dropped in 2025 by a total of $21.5mn (-1%); but podcast ad sales dropped in the year by almost $99mn (“due to optimization of podcast inventory”). However, the costs to Spotify of making podcasts also decreased in 2025, helping ad-supported gross margin improve.
  • In 2023, Spotify had 9,123 employees. By the end of 2025, there were -20% fewer, at 7,287.

• Acast posted its Q4/25 earnings report. In contrast to Spotify, ad sales increased by 29% year-on-year (in the US, by 60%). It made a loss of (US) -$2mn for the year; but for last quarter, a profit of (US) $7.2mn. Total listens increased slightly for the year, +1.1%. The company, headquartered in Sweden, described Q4 as “starkt fjärde kvartal” - a strong fourth quarter.

• The 69th Annual New York Emmy Awards are open for entries - and video podcasts are specifically mentioned as being eligible for the “Talk Program” category. The “Content Shorts” category - for “excellence in short-form content created with a social-first strategy” - is probably also a good category to consider.

• Audacy made an agreement to sell Sonos Radio’s streaming inventory, and will add more than a hundred Sonos Radio stations to the Audacy app, as well as to other smart speaker platforms. Sonos was previously using AdsWizz.

• Apple has made a number of commitments to the UK government, including that Apple will “rank apps in their app stores ​in a fair, objective and transparent way”. The Apple Podcasts directory uses the same systems as the App Store; and ranking of podcasts is quite similar (based on recent installations for apps, recent follows for podcasts). Are changes similarly afoot for the way podcasts are ranked?

  • Apple’s “ratings and reviews” service is also similarly shared with the App Store. In some cases, it allows users to anonymously publish defamatory comments that Apple refuses to remove. (Hit reply to tell us some of your worst, we’re collecting them).

• Ring statsministern! - “Call The Prime Minister” - is a new podcast from Ulf Kristersson, who is the Swedish Prime Minister. The show is hosted on Swedish podcast hosting company Podspace.

• Descript has changed its logo to be red, not blue. Apparently it’s “in honor of the record button”. It has also added transcription in British English, which would spell the word “honor” correctly differently.

• Further reading: Frank Racioppi asks: Shouldn’t there be a Podcast Hall of Fame museum? … Jess Schmidt wonders Why is it so hard to get funding for podcasts? … The Spectator asks (paid) Are podcasts killing off nonfiction books?

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