Podcasts are having a moment. But with Apple providing limited data on their audiences, big brands are reluctant to throw a lot of money at the medium.

Radio and podcast veteran Andy Bowers is the chief content officer at Panoply, Slate's 1-year-old podcast network. When he started at Slate, the publisher's podcasting operations amounted to him reading Slate articles into a mic. Today, Panoply is a Slate platform that partners with publishers including The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair and Sports Illustrated.