Right Side Up and Sounds Profitable are hosting a free webinar on October 28 at 1 p.m. ET: The Chatbot Sent Them: What AI Use & Discovery Mean for Your Podcast Ad Dollars. Right Side Up Director Grant Durando will join Sounds Profitable Partner Tom Webster in a session building on findings from The Podcast Landscape 2026. The data serves as the first baseline for how podcast consumers use LLMs, covering how AI may add a step between hearing an ad and buying. The presentation will also look at what that step means for measuring podcast results. Durando and Webster will also cover whether brands show up when customers ask an LLM. The goal is to turn the research into 2027 spend decisions.

IAB Tech Lab's Podcast Technical Measurement Guidelines v2.3 are now final. The framework covers how to measure podcast downloads, audience and ad delivery from server-side log data. The update clarifies how those rules apply to both audio and video podcasts. It covers shows distributed through open RSS feeds and apps that rely on server-side file delivery. IAB Tech Lab has moved all of its specifications to GitHub. CoHost is now the first podcast hosting company certified under v2.3, according to Podnews reporting. It earned recertification on October 15.

Spotify is expanding audiobooks from 22 markets to more than 180 by the end of 2026. The Streaming Wars reports that new markets launch with more than 350,000 English-language titles. Spotify's full library holds more than 700,000. Local-language catalogs are much smaller. For example, Spanish has more than 45,000 titles and Portuguese has more than 6,000. Its Audiobooks+ add-on launched just over a year ago. It has since passed one million subscribers and $100 million in annual recurring revenue.

Inside Audio Marketing reports that the 2025-26 political cycle has passed $10 billion in aired ads and future reservations. That already tops the final totals of the 2019-20 and 2021-22 cycles. House and Senate races have drawn more than $3.8 billion in aired ads so far. Senate races account for about 61% of that. 386 House general elections have drawn about $1.2 billion in aired ads and reservations. The 21 toss-up districts account for $567.8 million of that total. AdImpact projects $11.6 billion for the full cycle, including $273 million for radio. Elsewhere in the world of political advertising research, Sounds Profitable recently released findings from The Podcast Landscape 2026 focusing on how survey respondents react to politicians on podcasts. One in four likely voters who consume podcasts monthly say a candidate's podcast appearance could make them more likely to vote for that candidate. 9% say less likely. Likely voters who don't listen to political talk report the same 25% positive influence. They make up 70% of likely voting monthly podcast consumers.

MIDiA Research's new Podcast market shares 2025 report counts 965.4 million gross monthly podcast platform users in Q4 2025. YouTube leads with 308.2 million users and a 32% share. It added 27 million users in 2025. Spotify added 10.8 million and Apple added 2 million. Ximalaya FM ranks second with a 29.2% share, almost entirely from China. Spotify is third. Apple Podcasts is fourth globally and third outside China. YouTube and Spotify together hold half of the global market. Monthly active podcast accounts have grown 184% since 2020. MIDiA argues that multi-purpose platforms put audio-only services like Audible, BBC Sounds and NPR at a structural disadvantage. It adds that screen fatigue could help audio-only platforms win back some ground.

…as for the rest of the news:

Submit a press release or job posting for free.