by Gavin Gaddis

Summer is nearly upon us and our hard work from earlier in the year is bearing fruit. Spicy fruit. My jalapeño plant has one pepper ready to harvest. Luckily, the world of podcasting has a few more things coming to fruition besides a single mildly spicy pepper (which I am pickling, thank you for asking). Let’s look at the week’s news.

Lucas Velez, SXSW Manager of Account Management, shared the upcoming launch date for SXSW 2027’s PanelPicker application process. On Tuesday, June 23 at 2:00 p.m. CT, there will be a live AMA (ask me anything) session for PanelPicker, as well as a SXSW EDU AMA on Thursday, June 25 at 2:00 p.m. CT. SXSW and SXSW EDU will hold office hours through July to answer PanelPicker questions. Sounds Profitable can confirm that Podcast Movement Evolutions will return for SXSW 2027, Monday through Wednesday of the event.

This week, the Alliance for Measurement in Podcasting announced its first unified impression framework for audio and video podcasting. The framework gives advertisers and publishers a common way to compare audio and video podcast inventory while preserving the download metric as a delivery signal. AMP members approved four exposure definitions with no dissenting votes:

This new standard is consumption-based, rather than delivery-based, and is inherently designed to work for both audio and video, taking into account both listening and viewing on all platforms. It functions as a supplementary layer of measurement, rather than a sudden currency replacement, allowing for cross-platform comparison without needing individual platforms to abandon existing frameworks.

In addition to exposure definitions, the AMP intends to develop a universal definition for the term “podcast.” The task force will unveil its full guidance at the Oxford Road CAO Summit on July 23, 2026. 

In this week’s Sounds Profitable article, Webster shares his current relationship with AI. In a year, that relationship has evolved from experimental ChatGPT use to running multiple open-source LLMs on a local server in his home. With the continual development of genAI tech, he recalls the amount of menial jobs in his lifetime he’s seen made redundant by tech innovation, like paying folks a dollar a page to type up handwritten papers. A quote from the article:

“Finally, I think it’s important to note that consumer attitudes about AI in things like podcasts may not be where you think, and that line is always moving. We are already acclimated to TikTok videos being narrated by seemingly the same two or three voices. I do believe in disclosure; however, I think that, too, will fall away in time (and that won’t take very long) because people are just not going to care.

But this is the one thing you CAN and MUST do, no matter how much or how little you embrace AI: you must care. Claude cannot care. But you can care. You can ensure that the craft is evident, that the hand of the watchmaker is revealed in the workings of the watch, however it is made.” 

The constant of AI is the person choosing to post the content. Behind every sloppy email and sketchy article full of genAI tells, there’s a person who decided that was good enough to publish. 

It’s been a busy week for the Sounds Profitable thought leadership series, so I’ve got two articles to share this time!

First up from Monday: The question B2B brands keep asking that downloads can't answer. CoHost & Quill VP of Marketing Alison Osborne has a new article for the Sounds Profitable thought leadership series. The world of business-to-business (B2B) marketing is growing. Podcasting needs to mature with it. Osborne argues that podcast measurement still answers outdated questions about “how many.” Download stats matter less now that B2B marketers care more about audience makeup, whether the right people are finding the show, and whether listeners are entering the funnel. They get firmographic data and repeat-consumer behavior from every other channel they advertise in; podcasting has to catch up.

Then on Wednesday, Sport Social Podcast Network published Voices of the World Cup, arguing that the sound of the 2026 FIFA World Cup is just as likely to come from a podcast as from a sports broadcaster. In the four years since the previous World Cup, podcasting has grown into more than a complementary format; it is now “a defining part of how fans experience major sporting events.” According to a new release from BBC Studios and NumberEight, a major U.S. hospitality brand saw a 19% overall awareness lift from a World Cup travel podcast campaign developed with BBC Studios, NumberEight, Barometer, and Veritonic.

Podscribe is back with our Q2 2026 Performance Benchmark Report (PPB), featuring new cross-channel insights across podcasting and streaming audio.

Wednesday, Jun 10, 2026 12:00 PM ET / 9:00 AM PT

This quarter, we're exploring:

Plus, get the latest cross-channel benchmarks to help guide your 2026 media strategy.

While they may not be top story material, the articles below from this week are definitely worth your time: