Announcer 0:00

The Podnews Weekly Review uses chapters, so you can skip some of the predictions this year. But don't do that. The last word in the podcasting news. This is the Podnews Weekly Review with James Cridland and Sam Sethi.

James Cridland 0:14

I'm James Cricket, the editor of Pod News, and Happy Christmas. And I'm Sam Steffi, the CEO of Two Fans and Happy Christmas for Me Too. Now, we are not here this week. I mean, obviously we are, but we're not. But all of our friends are, because this is a special show with a few friends from the industry. We say a few, more than 25th, who've given us their highlights from last year as well as I look forward to next year in podcasting. And this podcast is sponsored by FastProud. Start podcasting, keep podcasting with Fastsprout.com.

Announcer 0:46

From your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly Review.

Roman Wasenmuller, Spotify

Sam Sethi 0:50

Now, James, we asked several friends of Pod News Weekly Review for their highlights of 2025 and their predictions for 2026. Let's start off with Roman Vattenmuller. He is the head of podcasting and video at Spotify.

James Cridland 1:04

And as with all of these, we'll start with what he thought the highlights were for 2025.

Roman Wasenmuller 1:10

Seeing the data put the video versus audio debate to rest and being able to work with the entire industry on reaching higher heights. I was really inspired by the success cases of long-standing shows gaining new traction and reaching new audiences, and an entire generation of new podcast creators all across the world finding meaningful success. And what does he think is going to happen in 2026? Diversification becomes the standard. I strongly believe the authenticity and loyalty that have shaped podcasting are the perfect foundation for business models across advertising, subscriptions, events, and distribution models at a scale that we haven't seen before.

James Cridland 1:45

Roman from Spotify.

Ben Cave, Apple Podcasts

James Cridland 1:47

Now this podcast uses chapters, which you can use to skip between stories normally, but this time around, skip between predictions. Don't do that. Some podcast apps like Spotify, and now Apple, are producing automatic chapters. So you can do that with any podcast. And talking of Apple, here's Ben Cave.

Ben Cave 2:06

Looking ahead to next year is especially meaningful this time around, as Apple Podcasts celebrated its 20th anniversary this year. When we introduced podcasts in 2005, we helped put the pod into podcasting and have taken our role as a steward of the medium seriously ever since. And even as we help drive podcasting forward, there are some enduring principles that guide us. Three important ones. As the home of podcasts, we believe the medium deserves a global platform solely focused on the best experience for creators and audiences of podcasts. That podcasting is open by design. Everyone has a voice. And lastly, at Apple, we will continue to showcase excellence. We want to help creators shine and celebrate the best. So to a prediction. Well, we predict continued growth for Apple Podcasts and for podcasting. It's really exciting to realize that even after 20 years, we continue to introduce podcasts to new listeners for the first time. In 2026, podcasting will continue to expand worldwide in diversity of creators and with the very nature of the format itself. Apple Podcasts will continue to innovate with new features, as we have recently with transcripts, automatically created chapters, and time links. There are so many new ways for audiences to dive into their favorite shows. And even as our industry evolves and transforms, there are some essential qualities that will remain consistent. That uniqueness of human connection and conversation, the open canvas of long-form programming, the mix of talent and persistence it takes for creators to truly earn an audience, and the quality of being deeply woven into the rhythm of people's lives. Those fundamentals will continue to hold even as the boundaries of the medium stretch. And finally, the Apple Podcast charts will keep proving that breakout hits can come from anywhere. We are really looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with in 2026.

Steve McLanedon, YouTube

Sam Sethi 4:15

So next up is our friend Steve McClendon from YouTube. Now, Steve says he's a product manager more than he is anything else, but Steve has some wonderful predictions for us.

Steve McLendon 4:26

Hi Sam. This is Steve over at YouTube. And thank you for asking me to participate in sharing some highlights from 2025 and thoughts about 2026. In terms of 2025, I think we came into the year really with a ton of momentum coming out of 2024. It had been, you know, sort of dubbed this podcast election, and there was lots of buzz around podcasting. And I think, in fairness, maybe some folks thought that podcasting had peaked in some ways. And I think 2025 really showed no podcasting is huge and podcasting is not going away. If anything, we saw more cultural moments and more sort of big things happen in podcasting, you know, maybe highlighted by Taylor Swift appearing on New Heights and announcing her new album and talking about her relationship with Travis Kelsey. And it was really amazing to see how audiences could interact with podcasts in a way that, you know, even a few short years ago really wouldn't have been something that people thought about with podcasting, which was really more of an individual event and more of something, you know, like between me and my earbuds. In terms of 2025, the thing that, you know, when I look back on our year, I'm really proud of the team. We made huge strides in improving the search and discovery experience for podcasts on YouTube. We really focused on core quality work across YouTube main and on the music app. We launched shows on living room devices, which really kind of make podcast shows shine for users who are watching them on their TVs. So we're really excited by the progress that we've made. Looking ahead to 2026, I think there's lots of work for us to continue to do to drive more improvements in terms of search and discovery. I think there's a lot of interest and effort that we will be putting in to make sure that all types of podcasters can find success on the platform. In particular, we've heard from audio first podcasters. So, you know, we're thinking about ways to improve the listening experience. We're thinking about ways to improve nomination and ranking of listenable content broadly across YouTube. And then, you know, as a personal user and fan of podcasts, I'm really excited to see, you know, what new shows launch, who the new voices are. Every year, yeah, I've been a podcast listener now for a long time. Um, and I, you know, every year I find a new show that kind of surprises and delights me. And I expect 2026 will deliver that as well. And um, so I'm really excited, looking forward to the next year. And um, I will see many of you at our various conferences and events through the course of the year as well.

Shea Simpson, Amazon Music

Steve McLendon 7:33

Thank you.

James Cridland 7:33

Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and now Amazon. Here's Shay Simpson.

Shea Simpson 7:39

Hi, my name is Shay Simpson, and I lead the spoken word business team at Amazon Music. For my highlights, uh, I always like to start with the people. So uh this industry is full of so many great people. And when we're all able to get together at an event like the podcast show or podcast movement, uh, those really are the highlights for me. So I'll start there. From a content perspective, I loved that we had another milestone moment with Taylor Swift announcing our album release on New Heights. That really solidifies podcasts as a key medium where celebrities come to announce their biggest news. And I think that's great for the industry. As a personal one, we at Amazon Music hosted a San Monadel podcast event in Mexico City featuring live recordings from eight top local podcasts across various genres. It was just so cool to see these live podcast performances in an intimate venue with live audiences, seeing the fans' reactions. Uh, really something that I will will always remember. And then the last highlight uh was just how there continue to be so many ways for creators to get their stories out there, whether it's a podcast or audiobook, short form or long form, audio or video. We continued to see innovation in distribution and discovery tools across the podcast industry in 2025. And that's something I hope we continue to see next year. In terms of predictions for 2026, I think podcasts are gonna continue to grow in importance in their as a cultural news outlet. They are the place to break news, to update your fans, and we're gonna see even more artists and creators leaning on podcasts for their big announcements next year. I think we'll see the video space continue to evolve pretty rapidly for podcasts, both in terms of the number and types of services entering the space, as well as the hosting and distribution platforms that distribute the content. And hopefully we'll start to see some standards emerge from all this. And then lastly, for my bold prediction, uh, I'll say that this is the year 2026 that Pod News Daily finally cracks the global top 20 on the podcast charts. You can do it, guys. Thank you all and have a happy new year.

Announcer 9:54

The Pod News Weekly Review with BuzzSprout with Buzz Sprout. Start podcasting, keep podcasting.

Jordan Blair, Buzzsprout

Sam Sethi 10:03

Up next is Jordan Blair, who is the producer of Buzzcast and also from our sponsors, Buzz Sprout.

Jordan Blair 10:10

I've been thinking a lot about AI and podcasting heading into 2026. And on the one hand, I feel like AI is such an incredible tool for creators. And so it makes sense that creators are absolutely embracing AI as a creation and a workflow tool. And Adobe actually had a report this year on data from like 16,000 creators, and over 80% of them said that AI helps them create content that they otherwise couldn't have made. And to me, that is seriously cool. I love that independent podcasters can create something that they may not have previously been able to do. But here's where there's tension consumers are starting to hit AI fatigue, an absolute brick wall of AI fatigue. And it's this thing where when people know something is AI generated, they they like it less. They don't trust it, they're less likely to engage. And people are being turned off by content that feels inauthentic. We've hit this point where the novelty of AI is completely gone and it's no longer this cool thing. It's now feeling a little bit more stigmatized. And so this is leading me into my prediction for 2026, which is that there is going to be a really strong pushback from consumers, from listeners, from audiences against anything that even smells of AI. And so my hope for 2026 is that the AI slot podcasts fall to the wayside, fade into obscurity, while podcasts by independent podcasters who put their heart and soul into their shows continue to grow and, you know, maybe even monetize their podcasts through real connections and through humans supporting each other.

James Cridland 11:55

Amen to that. Uh Jordan from Buzz Sprout. I'm not supposed to be commenting on what people are saying. So let's pretend that I didn't do that.

Greg Glenday, Acast

James Cridland 12:03

Now it's been quite a year for uh ACAST. Um, they are now uh trading on NASDAQ in Stockholm. Let's hear from the CEO, Greg Glende.

Greg Glenday 12:13

Happy holidays. This is Greg Glende from ACAST, and I cannot be the only one shocked that we are already doing a 2025 retrospective and a 2026 prediction show. It seems like we just started the year, and here we are. So 2025, I'll I'll I'll try and be brief, but it was a great year, lots of milestones, lots of things happened at ACAST and in the industry. Uh, I'd be remiss if I didn't say, you know, it's not all sunshine and rainbows across the larger industry. Um, you know, there's large companies who've de-emphasized podcasting or stepped out of the business, or, you know, and then on the larger backdrop, things like IPG and Omnicom, you know, our customers who, you know, there's thousands of people potentially displaced. So I mean, just want to say that uh, you know, I think podcasting and ACAST, it's a bright spot in the industry, but it is definitely a time of uncertainty in media with a lot of change. So if I think about uh the cool stuff that happened in 2025 for us, you know, we had our 10-year anniversary, which I think is a pretty cool milestone that a company like ACAST, that is a pure play podcast company, not only could make it to 10 years, but be thriving, um, sticking to our guns and doing what we did from day one. So I think that's great. Uh North America became our largest region, and the US became our largest market, which I think is something we expected to happen in the future. And to see it happen in 2025 was great. And it happened without, uh not at the expense of any other market. You know, UK, Sweden, Australia, France, everybody, uh we had a lot of growth in all the markets, but the US uh became the largest. Back in January, we acquired Wonder Media Network and we closed on that deal. And Jenny and Sheera have been running ACAS Creative Studios since then, and it feels like they've been here for years. So we were really excited about that. In February, we announced that our full year profitability goal was achieved in 2024. Again, I think a really cool milestone that a pure play podcast-only company could find a way to do that was great. So, and Sam, I know uh adjusted Ebadaye, you're not a fan, but I promise you we're working on that. So we had a spring hackathon. We attended the podcast show in London, among other things, the middle of the year, and we said farewell to my friend Ross Adams, who stepped down as the CEO after eight incredible years with ACAST. I think uh ACAST wouldn't be here. And, you know, Ross's vision to bring the company from a small thing to what it is now through hypergrowth was really incredible. So thank you to Ross. In August, something I'm really proud of, we launched Acast Ads Academy. We had uh, I think we all got tired of getting the same questions from new creators, old creators, new clients, uh existing clients. So we took all of that knowledge and all of those answers and we packaged it in an impartial way and made it free. And I think we're trying to put our money where our mouth is. If we think the industry needs to do all these things to grow, well, let's let's let's help. You know, let's make some things, um, let's help our customers get smarter about how to use our products. So we did that in August and it was well received. In October, we made two, you know, really crucial hires for us. In Stockholm, we hired a new CFO, Anders Hag, who will be starting January 15th. And in New York, we hired Laura Hagen as SVP North America and head of global agency partnerships. So Laura's a really, really respected uh media executive in the US. And the fact that we could recruit her into the industry, specifically at ACAST, I think was a really good sign as well. Q3, we saw uh our Q3 results, the best quarter in company history and increasing our profitability margin, Sam. Um, North America and Europe both boosted the growth. Uh, and we announced new financial targets, organic net sales growth to exceed 15% between 25 and 2028, and an operating profit or e-bit margin of 10% by 2028 at least. So uh we were excited about those new goals. Uh, we had a Halloween hackathon where uh our product dev and engineers get together, and we've already rolled out a couple of features from the Halloween hackathon that have now become features in our products. So, so pretty cool innovation there. November, we released the podcast pulse report and campaign, which is kind of our annual uh research that has become table stakes for us uh again to help grow the industry, talk about what's happening in podcasting, how people should think about things. We opened our New York studio in the fall. Uh, it's our 15th studio around the world. And our first guest was Ariana Grande on a Saturday, and I was not invited. So I'm over it, but that that did happen. Finally, we had our listing uh on NASDAQ's Stockholm main market a few weeks ago. That was a huge milestone for us. And again, I think for the industry, uh, the fact that you know our natural growth and development uh it was enabled us to take a huge step onto the main market for NASDAQ a few weeks ago. So really excited about that, what that means for the future. All in all, big year, lots of change. Um, and to the Acasters out there, thanks for the focus. I think we had a lot of built-in excuses this year, and nobody used them. So 2026, I think it's gonna be big. I think this is going to be a really, really watershed year for podcasting. Um, I think we take a step forward. I think there will be some consolidation, lots of great companies that have built meaningful businesses. Maybe they've taken them as far as they can and they're looking for strategic homes. So I think all of that will start to shake out. This might be controversial and a little self-serving, but I think the MG minimum guarantee marketplace will change. Uh, I think the way it works now is like a net negative for the industry. Uh, they're they're trying to cram podcasting into this kind of old media container. And I just don't think it's helpful for creators outside of the top one to 200. Uh, and I think it's been fairly destructive to many smaller, mid-sized companies, you know, trying to get themselves off the ground. So lots of chaos and confusion in the marketplace. But I think that's normal when you're, you know, natural, when you're on the brink of something really, really great, which I think podcasting is. Um, again, I think we're so unique uh as an industry that, you know, we're gonna sort out who are our core customers. Is it uh audio buyers, is it subscribers, is it direct response advertisers, big brands, DSPs, small businesses? Will they be video buyers or something new? At ACAST, I think we're gonna invest in all those areas, but we really believe in the something new category. I think we're gonna push a lot of our chips in on something new. We think that revenue should catch up to consumption, if not in 2026, pretty soon. And we think we're gonna do that by creating something new. And I think the idea of podcasting being the best narrative influence platform or media platform that exists is something that really resonates with advertisers. You know, lots of companies use influencers to launch a product, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, of course. And then podcasting is a way to unpack that story, to tell that narrative over time, to get into more detail. So we think we have a place on almost any media plan. So that's it. We think it's gonna be a wonderful year. James and Sam, thank you, thank you, thank you for all you do for the industry. I think you guys, you challenge us, you call us out if uh if you see something that's not right, and uh, I think you make the industry better every day. So happy holidays, happy new year, and uh I will see you all on the other side.

Announcer 19:20

From your daily newsletter, the Pod News Weekly Review.

Jay LeBeouf, Adobe

Sam Sethi 19:26

Good friend of the show, knew him when he started that D script. He's now at Adobe running their AI and their podcasting. It's Jay Labeuf.

Jay LeBeouf 19:34

I'm head of AI Audio at Adobe, and one of the things I'm most excited about is the AI audio stack that we built over here at Adobe. We've had enhanced speech in Adobe Podcast for a little bit, but it was releasing version two about 10, 11 months ago, which really takes things to the next level. You see, you can upload any audio or video file, and it just makes it sound better. And this is solving a major pain point that. All creators, professionals, and people getting started are having. You drop in an audio file, it just makes it sound better, and it's processing millions and millions of recordings. Time magazine gave it a top AI invention award this year. It won a Webby. This thing is just really creating a whole new sound, and we're using that to introduce people to other things that Adobe offers. So we have generative sound effects, which allows you to add larger-than-life sounds. You can take your social video or even a podcast and layer in rich sound design just through text prompts. You can also use your voice to control it and make it really customized to what you want to have accomplished. Another thing is underscoring it all with Generate Soundtrack. It was a bold move for Adobe to release a new AI music model to the world. We built something responsibly sourced, fully licensed, so you can create natural original music based on an uploaded video or even a prompt that you just type in. And we're seeing this used for video creators, for underscores within podcasts, for theme songs, for advertisements. You can create something bespoke and you have a universal license to it. The best thing about it is you can actually control it all through producers' terms, things like style and vibe and purpose. And you can have precise timing control as well. Anyway, last thing that we're really proud of is generate speech. So with generate speech, it allows you to have lifelike text-to-speech voices with full emotion control. Once again, we built our own foundational speech model. Again, another thing that feels crazy to do from scratch in 2025, but we did it because we wanted to give creators control. We wanted to do something that was responsibly sourced. So we knew every piece of the training data. And once we do that, we can give creators a lot more control than they would otherwise have in a different model. So all of this lives within Adobe Firefly, our AI creative studio. It's on the web. Everybody should check it out. Super proud. All right, for 2026, I group things into themes: sound, speech, and music. First, sound. Audio this year is going to be able to be broken into Photoshop-like layers. Like we've been used to being able to remove the background of images or even separate individual images. Like you can click on a person and just delete them or click on an object you don't want and delete those. We've been able to do that with images, but sound has been really tricky. And we've now have the technology, some technology that Adobe's demoed called Project Clean Take. We also have a research project called Sound Lift, which takes audio and breaks it into individual layers. So I can remove and replace a subtle background track that might be playing in the background as I'm doing an interview at a mall or at a stadium. I can't use the music there because you don't have the rights to clear it. So you need to be able to remove that stuff. Soundlift, you can identify the music and just replace it. And then you can use Adobe's Generate Soundtrack to actually create something new that sounds similar. All right, the last thing, music. This year we launched a new major AI music model, the Firefly Audio model. And it's in Generate Soundtrack. And I get asked all the time about all the larger players, the companies that have trained legally or not on major label content. So the key insight here is that all these AI models, they aren't really competing, they're actually serving different needs. So the major label-based music models, those are designed for fan engagement and music creation. And they are basically about giving users the novelty of remixing famous music and creating new listening experiences. When you have a more bespoke model, something that is trained from scratch, like the Adobe AI music model, we're targeting functional music creation, things like background scores, podcast intros, soundtracks for videos. These are things that really have a different sound. We're not trying to create three-minute long novelty tracks with uh really funny lyrics. We're trying to give you a fully clear track that will not give you a copyright strike that actually makes your video content more valuable. So we're trying to give creators that flexibility. This is the year that I think we're gonna see a bifurcation of the AI music models into ones that are good at fan experience and then ones that are functional workhorse ones. And really excited. There's not a lot of glamour in doing the workhorse models that just make the work of creators and podcasters better, but that's the work I'm in for. It's gonna be a great year and looking forward to seeing if it

Dan Misener, Bumper

Jay LeBeouf 25:01

comes true.

James Cridland 25:01

If you're enjoying what you're listening to, you should be subscribing to the pod news newsletter. You can find it at podnews.net and it's free. Bumper is a fascinating company, really, really into their analytics. From Bumper, here's Dan Meisner.

Dan Misener 25:18

Hi Sam. Hi James, it's Dan from Bumper. All of my highlights are measurement related because 2025 was a fairly big year and some things changed. YouTube changed how views are counted on shorts. Spotify changed the metrics they report back. They ceased sharing a starts number and introduced this new thing called a play. 2025 was the year that John Spurlock proposed SPC, Standard Podcast Consumption, which I think is a very clever way that podcast apps can share consumption data back with publishers. Was also the year that Bumper, our company, introduced loyalty and lifetime value scores for podcast audiences. I was really pleased to talk to Sam about that on Pod News Weekly Review. All these changes I mentioned are related to the measurement of actual podcast consumption, real playback rather than the simple technical delivery of podcasts. And I think that is good news in light of my prediction for 2026, which is all about the buy side of our industry, advertisers and their agencies. I think we're gonna see a lot more rigor, tougher questions, and demands for greater transparency. If I buy podcast ad impressions, what am I really getting? How many people actually heard or saw my ad? How many ad impressions sat unlistened on somebody's device, either because of auto downloads or because the ad was served, but the listener never actually made it to the ad break? How many people, how much playback, how much time spent? I think ad-supported shows in 2026 are going to hear a lot more questions like these. And the shows that win will have good answers to those questions. Sam, James, thank you for all you do for the podcast industry. Thanks for a great year of the show onwards and upwards in 2026.

Ellie Rubenstein, Pocket Casts

Sam Sethi 27:30

Switching over to Automatic now and Pocket Cast, uh, it's Ellie Rubenstein.

Ellie Rubenstein 27:36

Hi everyone. I'm Ellie, the head of Pocket Cast at Automatic. Thank you so much, James and Sam, for asking me to be part of this episode. And thank you for this show. I look forward to it every week, and it's my go-to for staying on top of industry news. So thank you. Here are some of my highlights from 2025. One of the biggest moments for us at PocketCast was making our web player free for everyone. No account needed, no subscription needed. Just hit play on any podcast and listen from any browser. This was a very intentional step. Podcasting was built on open RSS, and we want to make sure that it stays open, accessible, and available everywhere without a platform lock-in. Another highlight this year was the work happening inside the podcast standard project. Podcast is part of this group along with many other apps and hosts, and the collaboration itself has been one of the most energizing things in this space. Seeing companies work together to introduce standards like HLS, funding, location, and other tags that boost distribution and support the creator-audience relationship has been nothing but inspiring. We also saw a lot of love from creators this year. PocketCast was ranked second in the Pod News report card, right behind Apple Podcasts and ahead of Spotify, YouTube, and others. That ranking reflects how creators rate the platforms that help them reach their audiences, and it's a strong signal for us that our focus on open podcasting and quality experience really resonates across the industry. As for my predictions for 2026, I think we'll see a lot more AI-generated content across the industry. Not all of it will be exciting, but one area I'm personally looking forward to is voice translations. With the advancements we're seeing today, the ability for creators to speak once and reach much bigger audiences in different languages is going to open doors that just weren't possible before. I also think community is going to be a much bigger theme. I hear it everywhere from creators. More live events, more small group interactions, more ways for listeners to feel connected directly to the people that they follow. That feels like an important shift. Looking at the platforms overall, I expect Apple to lean harder into discovery. They have a real opportunity to modernize how listeners find shows and surface clips in a way that still respects the open ecosystem. If they ship meaningful updates there, it could raise the floor for everyone. And since we can't talk about predictions without mentioning video, I think we'll finally see it settle into a clearer role in 2026. Video will keep driving discovery, but audio will stay the core format for most creators and most listeners. And finally, this one is more of a wishful thinking than a prediction, but I'd love to see more creators adopting podcasting 2.0 tags in 2026. Tags like pod roll, location, people, transcripts, and everything that could deepen the relationship between creators and their audiences.

Announcer 30:54

Happy holidays.

Rockie Thomas, Soundstack

James Cridland 30:56

Now here comes Soundstack's Rocky Thomas.

Rockie Thomas 30:59

This is Rocky Thomas, Chief Strategy Officer of Soundstack, with my 2026 podcast predictions via a holiday story. Twas a year of 26 and the landscape was changed when audio first was suddenly rearranged. Adding video to campaigns brought the industry such stress. The complexity of activation meant slowing success. The industry battle, the measurement divide, with walled gardens metrics, you cannot step inside. Spotify, Apple, and YouTube each holding the keys, tabulating the metrics has crippling degrees. The creators are launching the products they preach. Their DTC brands are within immediate reach. From coffee to cookware, the host takes the lead, owning the inventory and planting the seed. And niches of future where hyperlocal plays, forget scale alone for attention now pays. A focused community, strong trust, and high spend is where the true value in listening will trend. So sharpen your strategy, hold these trends in mind, keep listening to pod news, and you'll never be blind.

Hannah Southern, Podcast Discovery

James Cridland 32:01

Wow. Follow that. And the person who will have to follow that is from Podcast Discovery in the UK. Here's Hannah Southern.

Hannah Southern 32:11

Hey James and Sam. It's Hannah Southern here, commercial lead at Podcast Discovery. I think this year, going into 2026, creators know that they need to have a multi-platform approach. And YouTube is the place where this is actually being tested in the wild. This year, we've worked with a lot of shows from independents, publishers, networks, that have all been really successful for a long time on RSS. They've grown really strong audiences, really strong revenue streams. And what's been really interesting is seeing the same shows and how they approach their YouTube strategy for their podcast. What's really clear is that just uploading the audio version as a video just doesn't cut it for YouTube audiences who are consuming podcasts on that platform. So going into 2026, I think we'll see creators actively reworking, underperforming YouTube channels. We'll see them changing formats, making shows feel native to the platform, and in the process reaching a totally new audience. We'll see lots of strategic testing and learning on packaging and editing. And I'm really looking forward to see these podcasters find their audiences across this platform. I also think it's not just about the content and the edit for YouTube as well. YouTube audiences, they love the community side as well. They like going to the comments, interacting with the creators, and this should be the same for podcasters as well. So I'm looking forward to seeing podcasters actively replying to comments, posting updates on YouTube, kind of using all of the community engagement elements they can on the platform, and treating YouTube as somewhere, you know, where you show up for your audience and not just a place where you upload your podcast.

Sharon Taylor, Triton Digital

Sam Sethi 33:57

Whizzing over to Canada, um, although she has an Australian accent, still it's the wonderful Sharon Taylor from Triton Digital.

Sharon Taylor 34:05

Starting with 2025, I think it was a really pivotal year for podcasting. It's full of big moves, tough decisions, and new opportunities. Though fewer in number, the year still gave us some major acquisitions, like Lemonada being scooped up by PodX, and the year's not done, with Audio Boom still apparently being courted by potential acquirers. In a year where we saw unfortunately both layoffs across the industry, big shout out to friends at Wondery, The Ringer, and Headcum here, MA activity remained a positive sign for the business of podcasting. As do the new major players who continue to enter the space, whether that's Amazon's DSP gearing up to spend or reports of Netflix looking for content. The major highlight for me this year was the surge in ad spend. The IAB predicted the industry would hit 3 billion this year, and with Magellan reporting that spend was up 26% in Q3, thanks to ad loads at a five-quarter high, we definitely appear to be on track for a record year. Looking ahead to 2026, I think success is going to rely on smarter strategies, deeper audience connections, and tech-driven innovation. With an increasingly fractured distribution and monetization ecosystem, content consumption becoming increasingly modular, and large platforms offering promises of audiences outside of RSS, those who retain show control and can adapt quickly to new trends will lead the next chapter of podcasting. Unfortunately, that means podcasters will continue needing to make hard choices between chasing a new potential audience on new or growing platforms and retaining control of their advertisers and listeners. That tug of war between walled gardens and open platforms will continue, likely forever, but my hope is that some of the big players will open their walled gardens up ever so slightly to those creators who are demanding more autonomy. Video podcast creation and consumption obviously is driving this and inevitably will keep rising. New delivery methods though, like HLS, will help here, bringing improved measurement and a way to reach a video audience whilst retaining control of their feeds. My hope with video is that we'll remember that our core audio audience remains the most valuable for engagement and the longevity of the medium. Last but not least, ad revenue, especially programmatic, is going to keep growing. I'm predicting some big numbers next year for the industry. And with more brands continuing to enter the space and podcast listenership climbing, it's going to be another exciting one. Thanks so much.

Norma Jean Belenky, PodBiz

James Cridland 36:27

Now from the Podbiz podcast, here's NJ herself, Norma Jean Balenki.

Norma Jean Belenky 36:32

My predictions for 2026 are that we're going to see a lot more creators push towards subscriptions. Subscriptions, subscriptions, subscriptions. We've seen so many leaders in podcasting come on Podbiz and talk about this. We're seeing it with Apple Podcasts subscriptions integrations. We're seeing it with Substack. People are going hard on Substack. So I think that is a major trend we're going to see. I think there could be, you know, a little bit more AI integration that's controversial that people might be talking about. I do also think there's going to be more AI tools built in and maybe streamlined because it's a little bit all over the place for people. I think that's a very big one. In terms of the ad landscape, I think we're going to see more quantity over quality. And I think we're going to see really good content be king. Content is going to be king in 2026. We've seen a series of layoffs of good content. And maybe that was because some of those companies weren't structured properly for the monetization of that content. But I think, you know, there might be a bit of a backlash when you've let go of a bunch of creatives and content seems to be gearing in a specific direction. That really good content is going to continue to stand out and it's going to become even more rare. So I think people are going to continue to see the value in great content. And um yeah, I think that's pretty much it. Uh it's going to be an exciting year. I'm already confirmed to speak at Radio Days Europe in Riga Latvia. So if you're attending, I'll see you there. And check out Podbiz for all of your podcast monetization, podcasting conversations. Thanks again, Sam. Thanks, James.

Steven Goldstein, Ampilfi Media

Sam Sethi 38:09

Uh Stephen Golenstein, the professor himself from Amplify Media.

Steven Goldstein 38:14

Well, good generic time of the day. Little ode to Rob and Elsie. Thank you for all that you have done. Happy to be on the great Pod News Podcast. And by the way, in case you did not know, the Pod News Podcast has chapters. I hope you stick with this one. Before we can get to 2026, I think there are some comments on 2025. Yes, I think the business has finally admitted that the ground has shifted. In my NYU class, we talk about the three eras of podcasting, the first one being the Meundis era, and that was the early period of baked-in ads and narrative shows and public radio dominated, lots of mattress ads, maybe revenue of what, 350,000 or something like that. Era two was the spaghetti against the wall era. This is when the big companies came in: Amazon, Cirrus XM, Condinas, Sony, Paramount, iHeart, and everybody was trying everything. I mean, we're talking about deals, but talent, big talent. Something stuck, some things sort of just oozed down the wall. Era three, what is a podcast? And that's where we have been. And blogs, conferences, stickers, panels, a lot of hand wringing through the industry, a lot of denial in the industry. Meantime, my students were already on YouTube and have been, and asking, hey, why doesn't this podcast have a video version? Well, we ran a study with Coleman Insights earlier this year, and about 7% of people were video only and 10% were audio only. So basically, it's a hybrid. People listen or watch based on where they are and what they're doing. So Audio is far from dead, but different situations, different kind of consumption. And so we need to meet the customer where they are. And that's the new era. The new era is the hybrid era. And listeners are hybrid, so creators need to be hybrid. And this is not about where we wish they were. This is about where they are. So a couple of thoughts on uh 2026. I don't know if these are predictions, but they're certainly big-scale concepts. Uh certainly video has become the default for new podcasters. Doesn't mean everybody needs to be on video, but I'm pretty sure everybody who's marketing needs to be on video or have video in their social media promotion. I think we really need to put some elbow grease beyond the download. I don't think this is going to fully happen in 2026, but let's make some progress here. A download is not a listen. 40 to 50% of downloads don't convert to listens. It's an intention. It is not consumption. YouTube, Spotify, they're not even using downloads. So we need to be thinking in starts and views and listen time and watch time and retention. And if podcasting wants to grow up, the business has to move on to this as well. Also on the measurement side. So most media is on a dashboard, digital dashboard like Trade Desk. Podcasting is not yet there and it needs to be there. And standardized measurement will be important. This year I had my students analyze four major podcast charts. The rankings were wildly different. It's like you're describing four different industries. This has to be the year that we start demanding coherence. I think a big thing is local podcasts. It has not been a big thing. Everything has been focused nationally, internationally, lots of reasons for that. But local media is collapsing in many markets. The voices, the newspapers, the radio newsrooms, they're gone. And what happens in a vacuum is that vacuums get filled. And we're seeing more hyperlocal businesses and shows coming about, the locked on network, sports, they've done a great job. CityCast, they've had their ups and downs. That's Graham Holdings, but love that they're there doing podcasts and newsletters. We need more authentic local voices. And there are local voices out there. They just need to figure out how to be better and how to monetize. I think another big thing this year is going to be adjusting to AEO. We're used to SEO, search engine optimization. Now we're moving into a different era of answer engine optimization. You see it just when you do your own uh Google searches. So we're gonna have to stop thinking about what keywords do I stuff into my title and start thinking about crafting content that gets surfaced as the answer when someone asks a question. Very different. The whole Google model is changing right here, right now. Um, another thing, retention. I think that's the number one issue for many podcasters. Uh, if we don't capture attention in the first few seconds, people are gone. This is a cross-media issue. It is not just a podcasting issue. So we need to understand the reasons why people leave and we need to give them reasons to stay. And as my friend Eric Newsum says, we are all narcissists with our time. Totally agree with that. People will do what's in their own interest. So, uh closing thought. Um, I think we're in a new era. I we are in the hybrid era of podcasting. And it's about recognizing that the future has arrived. So let's optimize for it. The shows that win aren't the biggest of the flashiest, they're the ones that adapt the fastest. Thanks for the time. Guys, thanks for having me on. Love what you do.

James Cridland 44:05

It's

Laura Burkhauser, Descript

James Cridland 44:06

the Pod News Weekly Review. Right, let's hear from the new CEO of DScript, Laura Berkhauser.

Laura Burkhauser 44:12

Obviously, my biggest highlight of 2025 is that I became the CEO of Descript. But I can see how that's not a point of universal interest. So I'll move on. Next up, podcasts are first class media. Things have been trending this way for a while. Podcasts were heavily leveraged in the 2024 election cycle. Now, in 2025, we're seeing podcasters put out cinema-style trailers for their upcoming episodes. We're seeing a new Golden Globes category. Taylor Swift was on a podcast showing you that the biggest stars in the world are all friends of the pod. Podcasting has made it. Now, has it lost some of its democratized appeal as a result? Maybe. All right, next up, AI is your co-pilot. I feel like there's always some huge controversy everyone's fighting about online in our industry. In 2024, we went through the video wars and video mostly one. In 2025, we're going through the AI wars. Descript took some shots and we caught some strays. The AI wars are interesting because like when AI is at the root of the thing that's being created and there's no heart or humor or creativity, we all see the AI and it just really transparently sucks. But when AI is being used correctly, when you're giving it tasks, when you're directing it, when your content is still deeply human-centered, but AI powered, you don't notice the AI. So I don't know. The backlash is real, but when I look at our data, AI is probably gonna win. At least what I mean here is AI-enabled workflows. Our AI feature adoption skyrocketed. Interest in AI, skyrocketed. And the stuff people are making into script is deeply felt, deeply interesting. Makes me really proud to work on this stuff. Last trend, B2B podcasts. B2B and brand driven podcasts are becoming really common. Marketing agencies moved from hiring comms and PR people to pitch stories to traditional media, to then advertising on podcasting networks so they could show up in new media to now just shortcutting the process and creating their own new media. So I've been on a ton of B2B podcasts this year that's business to business. And it's a great way to build your brand and your partnership network. It's also a good way for listeners to keep track of who's in the industry and to learn from each other. Well, because some of them are really boring, but others are some of the best, smartest content that I've listened to. So the same variants from all podcasts, I guess. Okay, so what's coming up in 2026? Well, I think that we are in for an authenticity crisis in 2026. Podcasts sort of came out as this raw, authentic, compared back, alternative media. And we're going to keep feeling tension as the medium transforms, as it becomes more popular, more lucrative, and as technology changes. So I've started to see this trend of fake podcasts on TikTok. That's only going to get worse and more nefarious. And I think it will eventually explode in two directions. I think on one hand, people will become savvy to the number of fake podcasts floating around to disguise ads and start looking for ways to verify personal authenticity and genuine expertise. And then I also think next year we're going to start to see a rise of synthetic creators. Basically, like what I mean by a synthetic creator is a creator who doesn't want to be on camera, who creates a synthetic creator persona and like deeply, deeply invests in it. This is not slop in the traditional sense. Slop is a form of content arbitrage where the cost to create is so cheap that even if the return on that content is low, it's still more than the cost that it took to make it. It existed before AI, but AI will make it worse. Importantly, I'm not talking about slop here because I think each artifact of these um fake creators will be lovingly crafted and created, just also completely fake. And some will be created purely and entirely to sell products. But I think it's important not to see this all as bleak. I think we'll also see brand new genres emerge next year that blend authentic storytelling with synthetic media in ways that are surprising, creative, and even fun. So those are some of the things I'm looking forward to and dreading a bit about 2026. I think it'll be another really interesting year for the podcast industry, which I think will only continue to grow in its influence and its importance.

Steve Pratt

Sam Sethi 49:13

Up next is Steve Pratt, uh, formerly of Pacific Content. He's on a sabbatical, the world's longest sabbatical, Steve. Come on. Um, he wrote a book called Earn It. Uh, let's see what Steve has to say.

Steve Pratt 49:25

Hello, Sam and James. Thank you for including me in your year-end cavalcade of 2025 in review and 2026 predictions. I'm sure you're going to get a barrage of the exact same issues from a lot of people because it feels to me pretty clear what dominated the industry in 2025. Uh, this felt like the year everyone panicked about video killing the podcasting star, and then subsequently panicked about AI killing the podcasting star. I remember at podcast movement evolutions in Chicago back in March, uh, YouTube had a stage and a really major presence. And there was a whole video track of programming, and it's all anybody talked about, mostly with existential dread. Like there was a lot of podcasting panic uh in March in Chicago. There were concerns about YouTube eating podcasts, there were concerns about how to define a podcast, if it could be both audio and video, there were concerns about production costs and monetization across multiple platforms, all of it totally valid. But there were also lots and lots of shows that figured out how to do audio and video well together in 2025. And there have also been lots of people doing smart research about how video is being consumed, who's consuming it, and proving that it's not the death of audio consumption. Then came the next wave of angst: panic about AI, and particularly panic about AI-produced shows that will fill our feeds with AI slop, and panic about AI video and AI-generated hosts taking time and attention away from content created by humans. And again, people are figuring out where to use AI and where to stay away from it. My favorite podcast this year and last year, Shell Game, has just returned for its second season, and it's all about using AI agents to try and build a billion-dollar startup with a single employee, the host Evan Ratliff. And so far, the show really cleverly shows the current limitations of what AI agents can do, and it's pretty limited. And the show is produced, thankfully, by a brilliant team of humans. I love it. I should also point out that Shell Game is not an interview show and there's no video. I want more courage to be able to have creativity with formats and to avoid the pressure to be everywhere all the time if that's not the best thing for your show. Again, Shell Game, awesome example of that. My prediction for 2026 is that the panic will die down and the creativity will get dialed up. In a world with loads and loads of AI-generated content that's mediocre or worse, it really pays more and more to make unique, high-quality, definitively human shows that audiences connect with. If you're going to make something, make it great, make it worth spending time with, make it worth telling other people about, because otherwise, what's the point? I hope we can use AI to save time doing the things we don't necessarily want to do, so that we can spend more time making shows that are amazing for audiences to spend time with. I think cross-platform measurement is going to evolve significantly in 2026. Reach will be measured across platforms, with some platforms like social video providing reach that audio alone can't, and engagement will be measured across platforms with audio providing time and attention that social video and YouTube can only dream of. In aggregate, the best podcasters will develop a best of both world strategy that offers reach and engagement and includes audio and video, and that's all okay. In my opinion, anyway. Smart podcasters are going to create more content designed to be a great experience on every platform they choose to participate in. So there you have it, my official two cents. Thank you, Sam and James, for all you do for the podcasting industry. I hope you both have an amazing 2026.

Matt Cundill, Sound Off Media

James Cridland 53:35

Staying in Canada. Why don't we stay in Canada? That's a good plan. Uh, because it's too cold, James. That's why. Uh from Winnipeg, uh, from Sound Off Media, here's Matt Cundle.

Matt Cundill 53:47

There was a time when making podcast predictions for the year ahead was easy. You could actually see what was coming. Trends were in plain sight. Now, things are a little murkier, which makes episodes like this one a lot of fun. But as I record this in the weeks leading up to Christmas, I know exactly what I'm gonna be asking Santa for this year. I want everyone to stop agonizing over video. Stop fawning over the camera angles and the YouTube algorithm hacks and wondering, oh, what's YouTube gonna do next? Get back to sounding great. Key emphasis on the word sounding. If it's one trend I'd love to get rid of in the last couple years, it's great-looking podcasts on YouTube that sound terrible. So 2026 is gonna be the year that we stop agonizing over video strategies and start focusing again on the craft of audio. Prediction number two, podcasting moves even closer to publishing. We're gonna see more growth from companies like Substack and Beehive. As podcasters get increasingly wary of the value of promoting their shows on social platforms, they're gonna double down on the tools that publishing platforms give them. It's better audience connection, it's more monetization, and more control over the content. Creators are seeing there's money to be made from multiple sources that come from publishing. Podcast ad inventory, it can be limiting, especially if you've got a short show. But publishing expands what can be sold, and AI-driven transcription now makes it easier than ever to turn episodes into publishing content very quickly. Prediction three the host red ad becomes even more valuable. Now I know I kind of made it sound that podcast ads are in decline, but you know, it's quite the opposite. We've hit peak inventory, not peak podcast ad revenue. The host red ad is going to continue to climb in value. Meanwhile, programmatic ads are gonna come under even more scrutiny. Again, that doesn't mean decline, it just means more scrutiny. Creators want brand control, advertisers are gonna be questioning the value of programmatic more aggressively, and in the end you can expect more demand for authentic, host red opportunities. Prediction number four. 2026 starts a new chapter in a book called The Decline of the Download. Downloads won't disappear. We'll still be talking about them for years. But in 2026, I believe one company is gonna introduce a metric podcasters and advertisers can actually get behind. And that company is Apple. They're gonna hire the team at Bumper to consult them on rolling out a new metric that blends listeners hitting play, listening time, consumption, and frequency. How often people come back to a show. It's gonna be a magical metric that's gonna be the solution to and cause of all of our future ad buying stress. Prediction 5. 2026 is gonna be the year that creators start to ask for dynamic video insertion. Right now, dynamic insertion is largely an audio-only adventure for podcasters, but I think we're gonna see more dynamic video insertion ramping up across the podcast industry. And it's not gonna be just about the ads and simple pre-roll swaps that you see now. We're gonna have some true mid-roll, context-aware placements that are gonna wind up all over our video screens. Just one more thing about video. I'm really excited about HLS and what it has to offer, but I'm gonna leave the predictions about HLS and its impending success to the others in this episode who know more about it than I do. Now, let me be one of the first to issue a happy 2026.

Adam Bowie

James Cridland 57:09

Let's whiz back to the UK. Someone who's worked for Virgin Radio and the BBC and is a radio analyst uh for himself at adambowie.com. Here is Adam Bowie.

Adam Bowie 57:20

Video Video Video. What began as an audio medium seems to have fully transformed into an audio visual medium over the last 12 months. I'm not sure that has always been what consumers are actually looking for, and I'm also not sure that the video versions of podcasts are always washing their faces, given the increased cost of production. But at this moment in time, video is seen as essential. It's interesting to hear Goalhanger, the company behind The Rest Is Podcasts, including the newly crowned Apple Podcast of the Year, The Rest Is History, speak of their company as being platform agnostic. I do think we need to be very wary of some of the metrics being banded around, however. Research has shown that audio podcasts that are downloaded or streamed tend to be listened to most of the way through, but that's not always true of YouTube or Spotify views, where someone may only watch a few seconds of an episode to count. And sometimes the auto-playing functionality of the platform is enough to make it count as a view, regardless of whether anyone stopped to pay attention to it. The podcast charts are full of always-on titles, and that's because they deliver the most volume, but they're not necessarily the most intrinsically interesting podcasts. Seriodized stories run the risk of losing out. Podcasting companies have shown that they are less willing to invest in expensive to produce short-run series when there is a more profitable way of generating returns. That said, it's interesting that this is set against the growing overall podcast listenership. Although a listenership that seems to have flatlined in terms of the number of podcasts they actually listen to, at least in the UK. Here the government regulator Ofcom has published research that shows that British podcast listeners only hear an average of five podcast episodes a week. Getting people to listen to more is not easy because time is finite. Understanding consumers' time pressures and working within those confines might be key to growing these numbers. I'd love to see a few more shorter duration podcasts launching, rather than everything being 40 minutes upwards. I'm fascinated by the standoff between podcast producers who are visualising their podcasts and Spotify. As things stand, if you upload a video podcast to Spotify, it essentially breaks the RSS feed for audio, and that means that your dynamic audio advertising won't work. In the UK, I noted recently that while 64% of the Edison Research top 25 podcasts were visualised on YouTube, only 22% were visualised on Spotify. Given that producers have already made the video, that reluctance to place The video on Spotify is almost certainly a financial issue. Spotify is leaning hard into video, and yet the technicalities of how they deal with a feed that is video enabled places potentially enormous financial challenges on podcast producers. There's also the issue that in most instances, audio CPMs are significantly bigger than video CPMs. I assume the scale of platforms like YouTube has driven the prices down. Whereas, depending on your content niche, audio can maintain some significant premiums for CPTs. But this does mean that given the choice, most producers would prefer to gain a thousand new audio listeners rather than a thousand new video views for the same content. Audio's just more valuable. Will this change in 2026? Meanwhile, we're seeing video podcasts being gobbled up by Netflix. They've done deals with the Ringer and now Goalhanger. In the scheme of things, the value to producers is probably coming from audio, so giving up YouTube ad revenue in exchange for some fixed fees from Netflix could make sense. But how will sponsor integrations work? Netflix has its own growing ad model, and will a podcast sponsor be happy if only the audio version is included in the deal? Or will carve outs enable podcasters to embed their sponsorships on the Netflix versions too? I'm also interested to see how Netflix Move into Podcasts is going to work. So far the major deals that have been announced are quite localized in their appeal. The Ringer is largely built for US audiences, while Goalhanger's Talent is mostly famous in the UK. One thing we've seen from Edison Research's top podcast tables is that listening is very localized. UK audiences mostly prefer UK podcasts, and US audiences almost exclusively prefer US podcasts. So a company like Netflix is going to have to make many of these deals in many of its territories if podcasting is going to cut through on the platform.

Rox Codes, FlightCast

Sam Sethi 1:01:54

Now uh launched earlier this year, Flightcast, which was a video first hosting company. Uh, we're going to hear from the founder, Roxcodes.

Rox Codes 1:02:04

Hey, this is Rox from Flightcast. Uh thanks for thinking I'm cool enough to talk on one of these. I appreciate it. Last year, highlight, obviously, uh, we launched. Hooray! Flightcast is out. Video first podcast hosting and analytics and AI and a bunch of other cool stuff. Coming into next year, I think the big patterns I'm expecting are a huge gain in understanding of how video works across the industry. I think a lot of people are very good at audio and aren't as great at video yet. And many people still are learning how video is not a format of a file. It's a whole movement of platforms having an algorithm instead of just being a place that people find you. Uh, it is a place to be found, a place to be discovered. So that I expect will take a huge, huge, huge uh shift. I think we're gonna see a lot more agencies uh uh and companies like like Storyon that are coming in and helping people do YouTube and helping people understand that kind of side of the fence. I think we'll see the word podcast get a little shakier and the word you know maybe show come up a lot more in terms of describing stuff that that goes on YouTube primarily, but is also on Spotify or Apple because it can be consumed at an audio level mostly. And I think we'll see a lot of interesting playbooks at the top level in terms of how people are doing growth and experimentation. I think the next year is gonna be really a year where growth is a focus on shows as much or more than monetization has been traditionally. And I think that that's probably gonna look like, you know, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of clips going out on super big shows. Uh, I think we'll see a lot of creative testing. I think we'll see a lot of ads testing and a progression one level down where the the more standard podcaster, or at least, you know, mid-sized to serious podcast, is starting to take strategies from the big guys and starting to take technical capabilities from the big guys, not just on the kind of stuff we're doing, but like analytics and analysis, like the stuff pod analyst is doing, the stuff listener's doing, the stuff uh uh Jamie is doing, all of those new tools. I think there's just going to be this huge shift in growth first analytics heavy tooling coming into next year that is not exclusively ads focused. Uh, that's

Matt Medeiros, The Podcast Setup

Rox Codes 1:04:26

my guess.

James Cridland 1:04:26

Right. Time to hear from the man who works at Rocket Genius. Uh he's called Matt Madeiros, Matt Madeiros, Matt Madeiros, and we have to say that a number of times just because he's monitoring how many people get mentioned. Uh, please welcome to this to the stage uh of this podcast, Matt Madeiros.

Matt Medeiros 1:04:45

Hey, it's Matt from thepodcastsetup.com, back with predictions for the pod news weekly review for the year 2026. I have one really firm prediction for 2026, and then a few others where I'm really swinging for the fences. Let's dive right in. Prediction number one, RSS is back, baby. We're going to see more RSS stuff come out in 2026. I think we'll see a resurgence of RSS readers, which might also incorporate podcasts and audio listening. And I think it's twofold. Let's start with AI first. I think the good side of AI is it allows folks to build things that they weren't capable of building before. Vivecoding as it's known, but I think being able to build stuff with AI is a positive. And I think when people look to curate the podcast experience and the written word experience of the web, RSS exists. And I think what people are going to rediscover is, oh yeah, I forgot about that technology tucked under the rug in the couch cushions, if you will. And they'll start to look at RSS again and go, the plumbing is already there. Let me hook up to that. And in the arms race of social networks and siloed content and gated content, RSS is going to win, obviously, as that openly available technology. The flip side is where this is all getting caused because AI and other platforms are starting to try to own that content experience. And I think the humans will leverage RSS to keep that open and available. Okay, let's get into the more crazy outlandish predictions for 2026. Number one, Facebook makes a podcast comeback. I know it lasted like three months before. But I don't know what Facebook is doing these days. When you look at the big tech arms race, uh, from a social network experience, Instagram is doing really well, I'd imagine, but not many people are really clamoring to talk on Facebook, unless you're just trying to complain about your local town potholes. With AI and LLMs, I don't see Facebook doing anything there. I don't see them doing anything on the streaming front. And I don't know what's happening in the metaverse short of their glasses. I don't really know what Facebook is up to. And I think they'll start to course correct with the social network and trying to combine that with unique user-generated content again. I have a feeling they might bring podcasting back in some form or fashion. Crazy prediction number two, D script is sold to Adobe. Like Facebook, I don't know what D script is up to these days. It used to be my favorite audio editing tool a few years ago. Then they started to cater more to video creators, which was fine. That combined experience was okay. Then it started to get further down the rabbit hole of AI editing, and now it's all about AI avatars and building out your own kind of script. And I just don't know who the tool is for anymore. From a pure podcast or even video editing tool, it just feels like it's got a lot of stuff going on. And who else better suited to wrangle in a big piece of software like that? Sounds like it might be Adobe. Crazy prediction number three, and I guess not so crazy because we're starting to see it with lips in podcast pricing goes up. I think we're going to see this unilateral price hike across all podcast hosting companies, as they're might not be getting as many customers as they once had. They're adding more features, they're bringing in more AI tooling. There's an AI tax behind that. And I think the cost of your podcast host is going to rise through 2026. On the heels of those price hikes, I'm going to say two podcast hosting companies get acquired by either a bigger podcast hosting company or uh through somebody like Spotify or even Facebook for that matter, or Riverside. I think we might see acquisitions or consolidations in the podcast hosting landscape. Okay, and here's my last crazy prediction for 2026 Apple adopts the location tag. I think Apple is really on the forefront of adopting a lot of really cool podcast technology for the podcaster and the listener to give a better listen, a better listening experience. And I think location tag will be next to be able to map stuff right on uh Apple maps and be able to see exactly where a podcast episode was recorded or what uh location the podcast episode that you're listening to is all about. And if you think of historical podcasts being plotted on a map where folks can actually pinch and zoom in and explore where this moment in history was all about or what it's all about, I think Apple's going to be the one that leads the way with something like that. Those are my predictions for 2026. Thanks for listening.

Ben Richardson, RSS.com

Sam Sethi 1:09:55

Next up is the shy man of podcasting, Ben Richardson. He is the co-founder of RSS.com. We often hear from his other founder, Alberta, but we've asked Ben this time to give his highlights and predictions for 2025 and looking forward to 26.

Ben Richardson 1:10:11

Hey Sam and James. This is Ben Richardson from RSS.com. I love this episode and I'm happy to participate. So, 2025, looking back, what do we see? Well, definitely we saw the departure of several top executives and a little bit of corporate turbulence. We saw layoffs and CEOs and executives leaving. Uh ACast, for example, and Ross Adams. We are seeing Daniel Leck leave Spotify. We saw executives leave Triton, Odyssey, Sirius XM, Wondry, and Amazon, YouTube and Libson. We uh it feels like we lost a lot of people and sad to see them leave. But that was definitely one of the things that marked 2025 for me. On top of all of that, we lost Todd Cochran, who was definitely a podcast industry legend. Uh, he helped us at rss.com tremendously as a mentor at podcast movements, where we got together often and talked about the industry, how we could help together further podcasting as a medium. And uh, we're gonna sorely miss Todd and all of his leadership and strong opinions. If if the industry in 2025 had anything that happened to it, definitely the loss of Todd Cochran for me would rank as the top one. We also saw some really great things, though. Um, Apple Podcast celebrated its 20th anniversary in podcasting. And um, with that, they they adopted a few more of the podcasting 2.0 tags that I think really make that podcast app shine. We saw Pocket Cast do the same thing, Overcast. And so the podcasting 2.0 adoption and what it means for listeners and creators as they create more interactive and listener-centric experiences really is a highlight of 2025 when I look back. Now, the uh advent of AI and how it can quickly generate uh, we'll call it content, but I'm not sure that's the right word, uh, really kind of took off this year. While the product is not very appealing to most people, it is appealing to some, and it will be interesting to see how that develops. We'll see this expand into video as well this year, uh, was more focused on audio, but one of my predictions for 2026 is that we'll see AI really squeeze into video and forget about audio as much. Um, and what that'll mean as we go forward is gonna be very interesting. So I'm gonna keep my 2026 uh prognostications a little bit more aggressive and you know, probably improbable, but who knows? Maybe I'll get one right. Uh, we'll continue definitely to see uh investors consolidate, which brings about layoffs, uh, likely resulting in acquisitions of smaller networks. Vertical integrations are just part of the business cycle, and I think we'll see that happen in 2026, probably not to the level of other years, but uh one of the big questions of 2026 is who will end up working with whom. Uh, we've seen some strange marriages in the past, and perhaps we'll see one in 2026. And as I mentioned before, AI production of uh podcast content is gonna continue to ramp up. We'll see uh heavily uh used AI in some production houses. And possibly in 2026, we'll see a breakout. You know, the Tilly Norwood PR uh push that's happening as as far as you know, uh an AI generated Hollywood movie star, we might see that in podcasting as well. And there may actually be some listener adoption. I know personally that uh there are some voices out there that even though they're AI generated, are starting to sound really appealing. And so in 2026, we might see something that is a little more palatable on the AI production side, but we'll definitely see that on the video side more than we will on the audio side. Video podcasting with AI generated content is gonna be the big story of 2026. Now, the last one I wanted to mention is that I think we're gonna see uh continued evolution of the podcast apps. Uh, and for the benefit of all podcasting, we're gonna see a combination of podcast apps um taking live events outside of the venues to create cultural moments. I think the live item tag is ripe for adoption by the likes of Pocketcast or Apple or even Spotify. And what that live item tag can do for creators and for their live events is going to maybe break records. And I think uh that'll be one of the major positives of 2026 is the adoption of a live item tag and a creator's opportunity to reach audiences just like as if they were on the radio. Well, that's it for me on the 2026 predictions. Probably something absurd is in there. In fact, probably all of those are absurd to a certain degree, but I'm happy to participate. Hope you guys have a very happy holidays and a happy new year. Looking forward to 2026 and seeing all of you at some

Justin Jackson, Transistor

Ben Richardson 1:15:07

point in time.

James Cridland 1:15:07

Now let's go back to the frozen north of Canada. Um, and the CEO and co-founder of Transistor, and also uh the uh I'm gonna call him the head honcho of the podcast Standards Project, something that he probably won't like. Uh, it is uh the friendliest man in podcasting, Justin Jackson.

Justin Jackson 1:15:26

All right. My highlights for 2025 would have to be getting together with other people in the podcast community at events and conferences. You know, whenever I'm feeling bad or kind of down about the podcasting space, I go to an event and I'm just reminded that we're surrounded by such incredible people here in the podcast industry. Uh, a lot of the people I count as good friends are my competitors. And uh I'm I mean, I think especially with Todd Cochran's death, this just got hit home. Like the time we get to spend together in person is so valuable. And so this was true at Podcast Movement. It was really true at uh the podcast show in London. And um I think connected with this uh in terms of highlights was just getting together with other people on the podcast standards project. Getting together in person has been so important. You know, we're all so busy running companies, but these in-person podcast standards project meetings give us a chance to stop being competitors and start being collaborators. And even though progress is never as fast as any of us would like, I think just being around other people who care about open podcasting, who care about the open web, who care about RSS, and want to ensure that we're good stewards of that technology. It was great to be together as a group. It was great to have Adam Curry join us at Podcast Movement. And yeah, I'm looking forward to the next time we can all get together. In terms of predictions, I think the increased dominance of YouTube, whether we like it or not, consumers are increasingly choosing YouTube. Whether it's what they turn on TV when they get home from a hard day at work or what they're consuming on the go, either with video on or video off, YouTube has become a substantial player, not just in podcasting, but really in every content vertical. Anything you can listen to or watch, YouTube is a major competitor. And when we survey our customers at Transistor about this, 73% are already publishing their episodes on YouTube or plan to do so in the future. Only 27% have no plans to create video episodes on YouTube. This is the future. This is what creators want. This is what a lot of consumers want, and I don't think we can hide from that fact. That being said, here's my second prediction. Does that mean there's no future for audio-only podcasting? Uh no. I think audio-only podcasting is going to continue to grow 10, 15% the same way it has for over a decade. 10, 15% a year, both in terms of new creators starting audio-only podcasts and uh listeners consuming audio-only podcasts. Just a nice increase, 10 to 15%. It won't make the venture capitalists happy, but this is still an incredible medium, audio-only podcasting, and I think it has a bright future. I think it's going to continue to grow at this rate for another five, 10 years. Thanks for doing this, Sam and James. And I'm wishing you both a happy holiday and a really bright new year in 2026.

Oskar Serrander, Wondercraft

Sam Sethi 1:18:57

Now, this one's very funny. You'll enjoy this. This is Oscar Sarander. He was formerly obviously at Spotify, and ACAST is now the CEO and co-founder of Wondercraft. Oscar, take it away.

Oskar Serrander 1:19:09

Ho ho ho, Sam and James and Pod News fans around the world. This is Oscar Sarander, co-founder of Wondercraft, former CEO at ACAS, and some other stuff in the creator industry. I'll warm up with my boldest prediction of 2026. Pod news will finally become a video show on YouTube and Spotify. James and Sam in 4K on your big screen. Can you believe it? Now, if someone only knew a future-proof video editing platform. Hmm. Anyway, before I drop the real bombs here, let's clear out two kind of obvious truths or trends I think are carrying we're carrying with us into 2026, right? So first one, AI. Let's get it out there. AI is making content completely abundant. Everyone can make something good enough these days, which means good enough means very little. Taste, originality, and identity become the real moat in storytelling. Uh today and much more true in the future. The content funnel widens and the winners sharpen, if you will. Secondly, video is eating the internet. And podcasting too. Podcasters without video will have a ceiling to their potential. We are visual animals after all. Audio will unfortunately continue to be undervalued next year. It's unfair, but true, and it has been for a long time. If you're into money, follow it. Alright, six predictions from me. The last one is the best one. Like and subscribe, friends. Prediction number one: no one is losing their job to AI. In 2026, we will go back to business as usual. This means the AI hype cycle will die down a little bit and we will be normalizing AI use. It's now embedded in all workflows like Wi-Fi and you know the cloud. And it's going to turn out that it's just making us a little harder, better, faster, stronger, not unemployed. Prediction number two, craft is the new clout. When AI is filling every feed, craftsmanship signals status, and creators who show their process build deeper fan trust. So I think behind the scenes becomes a bigger trend next year, and big creators will stage, you know, elaborate big shoots just to prove that they still can. And AI is a back office function. You just don't talk about it. Prediction number three: podcast discovery finally gets an upgrade, but it comes with some side effects. AI can summarize three-hour episodes in seconds already today. In 2026, platforms will use semantic search to surface clips before full episodes. So Discovery gets better, but the listening patterns is gonna shatter. So more people will discover your show, but fewer will listen to full episodes start to finish. Prediction number four: ad-free podcast listing becomes a major revenue stream by late 2026. I believe there is an uncomfortable truth about ad skipping in the podcast industry. I think higher ad loads recently and so many repetitive, poorly creative ads are starting to wear on audiences heavily next year. And as a result, I think someone like Spotify is gonna introduce an ad-free tier to remove inserted ads, not the host reads, obviously. They're embedded and they're great. And just follow the YouTube model in this sense. If the audience wants it, someone's gonna build it. Prediction number five: RSS will fade away. So hate it or love it, YouTube and Spotify will continue their reign as a main consumer platforms, and the need for this distribution anywhere, strategy becomes fully redundant. Your social short form strategy, however, is way more important. So your TikTok and Instagram strategy is in, your distribution everywhere, hosting provider is out. Prediction number six, and this is my favorite one AI becomes the savior of human creativity. Alright, hear me out. When machines can imitate anything, imitation loses value. Algorithms and sameness will force this new paradigm in 2026. So I'm a big AI optimist, right? Of course, having founded um AI company, but this is a post-AI hype outcome I think most people miss. Ultimately, AI is teaching us humans a very valuable lesson right now that most things we do is copying others in almost all aspects of our lives. We are in fact walking LMs most of the day. So I believe there is truly a new era of human creativity just around the corner where we break free and start creating new art because this AI is kind of mirroring us, and just that makes us look at ourselves in a new light. So, dear listener, go forth and be as beautifully weird and unique as you possibly can and create storytelling that makes us wonder. And yeah, you can use AI to tell great stories. That's me, friends, wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a very, very happy, happy 2026. Over and

Alex Sanfillipo, Podmatch

Oskar Serrander 1:23:46

out.

James Cridland 1:23:46

We're close to the end from Podmatch, the person who always looks immaculate at any podcast conference that I go to.

Alex Sanfillipo 1:23:59

I want to talk a little bit about 2025 and 2026 in the podcasting space. First off, 2025. I will say this, it was a great year for podcasting. And I think a lot of people might say that, but what I mean by a great year for podcasting is on the listenership side of things, if I just kind of had my uh I guess my ear down to the pulse of what's happening from a listenership standpoint, just in my normal life, walking around, maybe it was watching TV, watching movies, listening to music, whatever it might be, I heard in all those places more people reference podcasting. Perfect example, going to the mall. Sometimes I'm walking, you hear someone go by. Oh, I heard this podcast the other day. I'm always the guy, I joke right now, I always say plus one for podcasting with whoever I'm around because I'm like, that's good for me. And you hear it in songs. There was a song I really enjoyed that came out in 2025, and it says, like listening to your favorite podcast inside of inside of the song itself. And I was like, cool, like plus one for podcast, right? And I thought that was a really cool thing. And I've never really heard podcasting mentioned so much in people's daily lives before 2025. That gets me really excited. That means that people are really enjoying podcasting enough to talk about it in their daily lives. If I go back to when I first started listening to podcasts many years ago, I won't date myself, but when I told people I was listening to podcasts, we're like, huh? What? Or like, oh, why do you listen to podcasts are so lame, right? Like all these different things is what I would hear. That has transformed, that has changed a lot. And so in 2025, again, I'm really excited to be able to say that podcasting feels like part of our society, at least here in the United States where I live, I hear it just about everywhere, every single day, without people even knowing who I am or my involvement in the podcasting space. Beyond that, the tool set in podcasting 2025 leveled up big time. And in many ways, this was thanks to YouTube, although, like, I don't try to give YouTube too much credit, but it did force the rest of the industry, specifically the player apps, to get a lot better, to get a lot smarter, to have to try a lot more. When previously, in previous years, I feel that there was no need to challenge the status quo, really. But now we've kind of seen this rise of podcasting, again, driven by people, the culture. And now the tools that are coming into podcasting or starting in the podcasting space, we're all forcing each other to get a lot better to ultimately serve the person that's going to hear it. And again, that gets me really excited. Now, talking about what I'm seeing uh in the future, like really thinking about the future of this whole podcasting thing, 2026 on my my scope here that I'm looking at. The big thing that I see that I believe is going to happen is that all the player apps, again, wherever you get your podcast, wherever you listen, they're gonna continue to add features and more discoverability options. And this fires me up. If I go back two years, and even some of this year, even now, if you open any player app, you see the same 100 shows. So again, the in the interface of any podcast app could be different, it could be unique, but what's not unique was the same hundred shows everyone sees, or the same top shows everywhere. Well, what I'm starting to notice, not too much yet, but I'm starting to see, and I believe it's gonna be huge in 2026, is you open some of these player apps and there's different shows now. What do you know? They're not necessarily the most popular ones. Now, I'm gonna make a big statement here, and I might get stoned in the podcasting space for saying this, but I believe this is the rise of an algorithm in podcasting, which I know is a dirty word to say. RSS and pod and um algorithm should not be said in the same sentence, right? But hear me out. This is good for real podcast creators beyond the top 100. Listen, the top 100 shows, they're always gonna be there. They are famous people. They have worked hard to get there, they have a 20 to 30 to 50 year background to get themselves there. They have more funding than the rest of us could ever imagine. That's great. They own that space. But when you're gonna open up player apps in 2026, you're not only going to see their face, you're going to see indie creators, you're going to see people that are really trying hard and making something great, even if it's not the most popular yet. And that's because of this algorithm, or whatever it is that you want to call it, if you hate that word. Here's what's really great, and what I think really matters for podcasters this next year. It's going to be all about getting people to listen for longer. The way that a podcast is going to rank on these different apps and getting discovered easier is going to depend on how long people listen to your podcast. If people listen for three seconds and they leave, that tells the algorithm or tells the player app this isn't a very good podcast because someone didn't stay with it. Don't show it to more people until we can prove that it's good. Now, if it's really good content and people listen all the way through, guess what? You're going to start ranking real high with people that are similar to that person who stayed all the way through because now the algorithm, the player app knows people who are like this person like this podcast and have to stay listening to it. This gets me really excited because it kind of levels the playing field for a lot of us. And I'll tell you what, podcasting has always been run by the independents. And I believe this is gonna really set that notion on fire and help us so much in 2026. It's a future I'm really excited about. Thanks for

Megan Lazovick, Edison Research

Alex Sanfillipo 1:28:43

listening.

Sam Sethi 1:28:44

Next up is Megan Lazovic. Uh, she comes out with amazing reports from Edison Research every year. So I'm expecting, Megan, a very good prediction show from you.

Megan Lazovick 1:28:55

Hello, Sam and James, and hi pod news friends. Megan Lazovic here from Edison Research and SSRS. Thanks, guys, for including me in your end-of-year wrap-up. My highlights from this year focus on data and insights Edison has collected throughout 2025 around video, discovery, women listeners and hosts, AI, and ad spends. One of the biggest themes and podcasts this year has been video redefining the podcast landscape. Edison's Infinite Dial, with many thanks to its sponsors, Odyssey, Cumulus Media, and SXM Media, helped document the shift. This year's report was extra fun because the famous James Cridlin co-presented the webinar with me. In 2025, we reported that 70% of Americans have ever listened to a podcast, up three points from 2024. But when we include those who watch but don't listen to podcasts, that jumps to 73%. So 73% of Americans aged 12 and older have ever consumed a podcast, either in audio or video form. Now, video is a major player in podcast discovery. Our Gen Z audio report, sponsored by SXM Media, found that 28% of Gen Z monthly podcast consumers discover podcasts most often by searching on YouTube. And our TikTok report showed that 47% of weekly TikTok users ages 13 and older say they use the platform to discover podcasts. Some of my favorite research from this year was about what podcasts offer audiences. In the fandom phenomenon from Wondery and Densu, we found out that 43% of podcast fans have engaged with podcasts through other forms of media, such as TV, books, games, events, and more. And 62% are fans because podcasts help them feel like they're a part of something bigger than themselves. For this research, I got to follow a family as they attended a live Wow in the World event in New York City. And they got to meet Mindy and the gang backstage. The magic of that event was a great example of how being a fan enriches lives beyond just listening through experiences and community. I'll juxtapose that research about deep personal connections with shows and hosts with the topic of AI in audio. According to the research we conducted for the Audio Publishers Association, while Americans' usage of AI-narrated audiobooks increased in 2025, the willingness to try AI-narrated audiobooks dropped year over year from 77% in 2023 to 70% in 2025. Another national report from Edison among weekly podcast listeners indicated that 22% listened to podcasts narrated by AI. And in in-depth interviews with podcast consumers, we saw that consumers accept some applications for AI, but still recognize and appreciate humanity. Now, as a woman who made her start in radio, often the only person of my gender in the room, the women's audio report from Edison Research and SXM Media was a highlight of my year. Women-led content is a market force with half of the top shows for women having female hosts. And 43% of women believe that female-hosted shows cover unique topics not found elsewhere. A report from the USC Annaberg noted that female hosts are underrepresented. And I had the pleasure of speaking to the women behind that report last month. They deserve a shout-out for their important work. Hi, Stacy and Catherine. Investing in authentic female voices that resonate with women's experiences isn't just the right thing to do. It's smart business. Now there's one more milestone that I'd like to highlight from 2025. Nielsen Podcast Fusion, powered by Edison Research, is now available to agencies in the US nationwide. This means that podcasts can be included in media plans, backed by listening data to optimize campaigns across TV, radio, and other platforms. Earlier this year, we demonstrated how a 27% increase in REACH can be achieved with no increase in ad spending just by moving money into podcasts. Now we've known how effective podcast advertising can be, but now planners have the tools to easily see it too. Sam also asked for predictions. We don't like to predict the future at Edison, but I can give you one word, fusion. If you are a black and white thinker, then prepare yourself for an even more uncomfortable gray area in 2026, where AI and humans are producing content together, and podcasts live in both audio and video and on streaming TV services. But more concretely, expect to hear the words data fusion, more opportunities where one data set informs another, giving richer, deeper data available to the podcast industry. I'm also trying to make Infinite Dial the musical happen. I feel like James might be on board, but there are others to convince. So it's your guess as good as mine if that's gonna happen in 2026. Anyway, thanks guys. It was an excellent 2025 of research. Talk to you soon.

Dave Jones, Podcast Index

James Cridland 1:35:04

Now it's time to go into central Alabama and the pod sage himself from the podcast index, Dave Jones.

Dave Jones 1:35:13

Hey guys, I think last year I predicted that this year would be the year of Live, 2025. That didn't turn out the way I thought it would. Uh so I'll cop to that one. You know, that put that one in the L column. Although I mean we did see some traction on that front for sure. I mean, there was movement and there's there's cool things that are happening with live, but um it just didn't turn out the way that I thought it would, is to be a dominant story. Uh I think really if I look back on 2025, what I see is a general settling in of the podcast namespace as something that's not just a novelty, but across the industry I see that there's just been sort of an exhale of okay, these things are here to stay. Uh these are not just uh novelties, they're something serious, and we can use them to uh good effect with our listeners and our platform and app users to give them a good experience in a new way. We saw it with Apple, they they did the transcript tag uh you know a couple of years ago or a year or so ago, and then they came back and layered the chapters tag on top of that, and they're really complementary to each other. You know, th we're what we're seeing with uh the alternate enclosure with HLS video, it's uh kind of beginning to find its stride. I mean the alternate enclosure is uh it's finding its use case. Uh you know, these things just take time. So I think this is just the way mature technologies begin to look as they go forward. You know, and uh I I I couldn't talk about 2025 without also talking about uh uh Todd Cochrane's death and what that means to the industry as a whole. I think it's just going to leave a gap and uh nobody's gonna be able to replace him. He was a unique individual. And uh yeah, it's just gonna take time for many people in this industry to heal and move forward and um and it's a shame we lost him too young. As far as uh 2026 goes, I you know I think the dominant story is gonna be AI. And not that it hasn't been for the last couple of years, it it has in the general tech media and the media the media at large, but within podcasting I think it's gonna be hard to deny that the AI slop is is here. It's knocking on the door, it's starting to show up all over the place and as someone who runs a podcast directory uh we're s we just see it everywhere. And clearly uh uh this stuff is going to accelerate because it's too it's so cheap for people to create junk content and use loopholes in the monetization algorithms to uh beef up their download numbers enough to get some revenue for it. And I just think that as long as there is something like that where you can game the system, it's gonna end up like the web. Uh where you just have a whole bunch of garbage out there that exists only to monetize, and it's just gonna be something we're gonna have to deal with as an industry going forward. Uh the I'm afraid that it may just overwhelm the system, honestly, at some point. Because if a few people are doing it, it's one thing. If it becomes a mass endeavor that lots of people start to do, pumping out thousands and thousands of episodes a week of AI generated content, it's just gonna overwhelm the entire system. And we're not set up to handle that because podcasting still needs a directory, uh, whether it's Apple or Podcast Index or the directories that are tied to the specific apps like Pocketcasts or you know, listen notes. Podcasting needs a place to find things. And if these directories get overwhelmed with AI garbage, then it could just make discovery so difficult that the industry begins to shake. And um, you know, I'm I'm truly uh afraid of that happening. And if it's gonna happen, we will know about it in twenty twenty six because I think uh that's gonna be the story at the end of at the end of next year. Anyway, thanks for everything you guys do uh on a weekly basis and uh have a Merry Christmas, love to your families, and have a great new year.

Jamie East, DMG

Sam Sethi 1:40:00

It's Jamie East, the man with the nicest beard in podcasting. He's from the Daily Mail group. Jamie, what have you got to tell us?

Jamie East 1:40:07

Hello, Pod News and Pod News listeners. It's Jamie East here, head of podcasts over at DMG. Lots of personal highlights from the DMG stables. We've had a fair few number ones, including our first US number one. We launched a true crime network subscription network, which is doing really, really well. And long may that continue. Lots of great stuff happening. But overall, I just thought I'd talk about the podcast industry in general. 2025 for me was a year that podcasts undeniably became properly mainstream. I know we've been saying that for a few years, but this for me was the first year that like things like stories, investigations, and conversations jumped off the RSS feed and now kind of set the news agenda. Several podcasts out there now command more political cachet, audience size, or profit than traditional publishers, and this is both hugely encouraging and also slightly troubling. With all this success, however, came confusion and a fair bit of disruption as platforms continued their quest for homogenization. As we know, all apps and services must provide the exact same service and features. Heaven forbid they should specialise and focus on their core product. And now they came for podcasts. Now this sweeping generalization has, in my opinion, been pretty destructive and detrimental to the sector without any real data to justify it or back it up. So my prediction for 2026 is the settling of this caustic dust into something a hope that allows both sides of the fence to shine. We will, of course, see the continued rise of the big players whose podcast successes are now treated as stepping stones to grander plans, such as becoming rights holders or VCs or even America. Their transformations into the very same companies that they seek to upend is going to go a long way to setting the parameters for which I think podcasting 3.0 can begin to flourish. Are we going to stop calling everything a podcast? I hope so. If we're to offer a bit of clarity to listeners or viewers or even commercial partners, we must begin by distinguishing the difference between a podcast and a visual show. I stand by my statement that I made a long time ago that until we do this, all we're doing is diluting both products for the sake of terminology. It's nothing more than a narrow-minded land grab. Hopefully, video podcasts, visualized podcasts, or YouTube shows in Old Money are going to find their home. And audio, the very medium that got us here in the first place, will be rediscovered as a real trusted and popular format. One that, may I remind you, commands higher CPM and shows far higher engagement and listener trust than any other form of media. I don't know about you, but I'm old enough to remember the mental time when Breakfast Radio went through that ludicrous phase of trying to put cameras in their studios and broadcasting in its entirety live on TV, replacing the music with music videos. It didn't take too long before some bright spar pointed out that all they'd done was make a pretty bad television show. And I think the same rules will end up applying here. We need to do better on both sides. Spotify will, we all hope, I'm sure, begin to take creators and publishers' need for transparency and access to data seriously. Splitting of RSS has done more damage to the podcast industry than anything else over the past five years, and it's got to be addressed as a matter of urgency. We can't continue to be guinea pigs for billion-dollar corporations. Perhaps there's a bit of an overdue tech utopia on the horizon. How long can it be before someone like TikTok and Instagram create podcast platforms that finally give us a real chance of capitalizing on the trillions of views our content generates on social media? A simple unified integration could and would completely transform the industry, allowing creators and conglomerates alike to monetize effectively, even if they aren't part of the fabled Big 20. And on a separate thing, I personally hope for more accountability. We're a really powerful industry of built success on telling stories and important stories, and we should stand up and be counted alongside our print radio and television cousins. I find it depressing that we've become a safe harbour for cranks and fantasists that foster misinformation and bullshit. Let them navigate the hoops that their claims and proclamations would generate in any other form of media. It's at double standards to expect podcasting to be taken as seriously as television or radio and not be willing to have a light shine in our eyes. I truly, truly love this industry. There is no stronger way of telling stories or raising awareness for important things, and long may that continue. Viva la podcasting.

Chloe Straw, AudioUK

James Cridland 1:44:40

The outgoing CEO of Audio UK now. Here's Chloe Straw.

Chloe Straw 1:44:45

Hello, Sam and James. This is Chloe Straw, the outgoing CEO of Audio UK. I'm also joined by my cat and one of my kids, so anything could happen. So I have split my predictions and my highlights into various lists, five for each, so let's get going. There are so many highlights, particularly for Audio UK for 2025. We achieved and did an enormous amount of stuff with our members and our industry collaborators, and just generally it was one of the best years I can think of. So hard to pick five, but let's go. First, tried to do it in chronological order was the podcast show. We hosted a sorry, we hosted a stage, was getting a bit excited there, and also a load of different panels. So one of my favourites was the predictions for the future of global podcasting panel, and we had the best, some of the best people in the biz in that. So I was joined by Megan Bradshaw, Lizzie Pollett, and Jessica Cordova-Kramer, and it was standing room only and a really fun panel to do. So the second thing I want to flag is the creative industries campaign. So we ran at Audio UK a huge campaign to put more of a focus on podcasting and audio as a creative industry. That was brilliantly run by our policy lead Hannah Brankin and our marketing and events lead Katie Bannum. So props to them for that. Number three was the relaunch of the audio train platform that we did thanks to some funding from the BBC. So Audio Train has existed for many years, but we were able to launch it as a full-on platform, always on. Loads of different video training modules from video podcasting to IP to monetization, done from experts across the industry from Goalhanger, Colour Itin Studios, and a huge amount of other contributors. So we had a launch in Manchester, which was fantastic, and that was run by Juliet Nichols, who runs the training programme, and Katie Bannham. Now I'm keeping on time, I've already gone over. So number four, we launched the International Podcast Alliance, which is a collaboration of industry bodies from across the globe, still accepting members, to share knowledge, data, and expand connections. One industry body per country to keep it manageable, and very much about you know cementing that global part of podcasting. And finally, on the highlights, um Apple and ourselves and PRX announced that we're doing a creator summit together, primarily for early stage creators in February 2026. Absolutely about learning and also bringing community together. Again, some fantastic speakers lined up for that. So, predictions. Just wait a minute whilst I get my crystal ball out. There are, my daughters look at me like, what are you doing, you weirdo? Um there are a lot of different predictions. Who knows if they'll they will be right? And I presume some of these are the same as other people have come up with, but let's see. So, first of all, um I predict that very soon there is going to be an exciting announcement about the creative industries and about the campaign that Audio UK ran. That's number one. Number two, as you know, I'm leaving Audio UK. I'm very sad to be doing so. I predict there will be an exciting announcement about where about where my next job is. Number three, I think advertisers are finally starting to understand the brilliance and the opportunity that podcasting gives to them. As we know, it has a huge amount of trust with the hosts, enormous engagement, long listening times when compared to other media, and I think advertisers are finally catching on to the fact that it's a really good idea to spend your money on podcasts. Um number four, I think it'll be the year of the subscriber. I think the kind of harnessing fan communities has been something that's been around for a long time. Um, I think that it's really gonna ramp up this year. Number five, formats. I'm not gonna talk about formats if I'm honest. I don't care where you listen to your podcast or watch your podcast, consume it wherever you like. You could be drinking your favourite podcast this year. Who knows? And sneaky number six, I will finally decide to invest in a better microphone. So that is it. My five highlights and my five slash six predictions for 2026. Over and out. Do you want to say over and out atta? Oh, she's shy. Over and out.

Wrapup

James Cridland 1:49:58

Well, goodness, um, that was a lot, wasn't it, Sam? Uh loads and loads and loads of uh people. If you want to uh see what they said rather than listen to what they said, then you'll uh see um uh some of those in the Pod News newsletter over the next couple of weeks. But that's it for this year. Um so what's coming up next from this show, Sam?

Sam Sethi 1:50:25

Well, you and I return in the new year on the 2nd of January with our highlights and sadly lowlights for 2025. And then the week after, which will be the 9th of January, da-da-da-da, you and I do our predictions. So stand by.

James Cridland 1:50:43

Yes, and we'll also find out whether our predictions from last year and indeed the year before and the year before that, uh, have actually come true yet. And we're still waiting.

Sam Sethi 1:50:52

Well, I think some of them actually have a slow burn, and maybe some of them actually did come true.

James Cridland 1:50:57

Yeah, well, maybe that's the thing. But anyway, if you're still listening, thank you so much for still listening all this way through. Um you've done an excellent job of getting so many voices uh for us, Sam. Uh, thank you so much. Uh have an have an excellent Christmas. Uh, enjoy your wine. Uh, enjoy your uh I'm sure that you'll be having a a lovely Christmas, um Christmas lunch cooked in the arga.

Sam Sethi 1:51:21

Well, yeah, it's compared to you having your budgie smugglers on the beach. I mean, you know, obviously.

James Cridland 1:51:27

We'll be having prawns, which is apparently the thing. Prawns and hands. Really? I I don't I I don't understand either of it. Uh we will be having either. We're going to the local pub. Right. And we will be having a buffet, um, which is every bit as as exciting as it sounds.

Sam Sethi 1:51:44

I still could not get my head. I mean, you must, of all people, right? Being a Brit who's moved, you must find it the weirdest thing that it's so hot and you're in t-shirts and shorts having your Christmas dinner.

James Cridland 1:51:57

Yeah. While while the the the the music uh playing is let it snow. Yeah, it's just the weirdest thing. It really is odd. And of course, it's a summer holiday right now. So I'm getting I'm I'm getting all this stuff about Christmas, and then I'm getting all of these emails about, you know, uh, and for our summer holiday, we're going to be doing this. And it's a proper long summer holiday as well. It's a summer holiday which lasts six to eight weeks. Wow. So yeah, so um, so lots of people are off right now, and uh yes, and it's very weird. And I've lived here for ten years now, and I still think it's weird. It's still uh we'll be back in 2026. Looking forward to that. Thank you for listening, and we're hosted and sponsored by Buzz Sprout. Start Podcasting, keep podcasting.

Announcer 1:52:45

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James Cridland 1:52:54

Excellent. Okay, that was uh easy enough, wasn't it?