by Gavin Gaddis
Triton Digital Chief Revenue Officer Sharon Taylor argues the data does not support the recurring news cycle about podcasting leaving audio behind. According to the 2025 U.S. Podcast Report, only 7% of monthly U.S. podcast consumers watch podcasts exclusively. By comparison, 13% listen exclusively and 80% both. Video is reshaping how people discover shows far more than how they consume one once they’ve found it. Taylor's prescription is to treat video as an expansion rather than a migration, building a two-lane show where a single video file generates both video and audio outputs and audio ads run inside video episodes instead of a separate video ad stack. She notes that podcasting's first-year listeners skew more female and nearly a decade younger than long-tenured ones, and are far likelier to arrive through YouTube and social platforms.
A growing number of creators and the companies representing them want to sell advertising the way television networks do, through upfront-style commitments. Companies including Arcade, Spotter, Forbes, Walmart, and the IAB have all held creator-focused upfront events, but the model runs into a structural problem broadcast does not face. As Go Fish's Lauren Lyster puts it, creator inventory is effectively unlimited and spread across hundreds or thousands of sellers, unlike the finite, seasonal inventory a network controls. Experts told Digiday that any workable creator upfront will likely center on the top one percent of talent sold through agencies and creator networks, with Arcade CEO Matt Elek arguing deals need the defined output, metrics, and pricing that much of the creator market still lacks.
The legal fight over an executive order meant to strip federal funding from NPR and PBS has quietly ended. In July the broadcasters, local public stations, and the administration agreed to dismiss the remaining claims, leaving in place a ruling by U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss that permanently blocked key provisions of Executive Order 14290 as viewpoint discrimination and retaliation barred by the First Amendment. A pyrrhic victory for public media, given congressional rescinding of funds already disbanded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting back in January.
…as for the rest of the news:
Futuro Media's three-decade flagship series Latino USA is joining iHeartMedia's My Cultura podcast network.
A new WPP Media and System1 study of 1,217 ads found that naming the advertiser in the first two seconds, paired with strong positive emotion, can lift brand recognition up to sevenfold, and ranked podcasts and AM/FM radio among advertising's top touchpoints.
On the latest Media Roundtable, marketers from MasterClass, Skylark Marketing, and SelectQuote dub media mix modeling "the mullet of measurement," back in style only because user-level tracking stopped working.
Journalist-founded storytelling studio Brazen has raised a $2.5 million seed round led by Lotus Singapore Group to fund investigations across podcasts including Brazen FM and Whale Hunting.
Magellan AI's latest charts show retail and AI leading podcast ad spend, with Quince on top at an estimated $7.6 million in August and OpenAI surging to $4.8 million from $174,000 a month earlier.
A Nielsen and Katz Digital study in the Washington, DC market found unaided brand recall reached 65% among adults exposed to both digital audio and connected TV, versus 37% for either format alone.
Academic podcasting company Cited Media has hired Alan Black, founder of Left of Dial Media, as its Director of Operations and Development.
