Sounds Profitable

This week in the business of podcasting:

• Sounds Profitable released The Podcast Atlas, a study of more than 5,000 U.S. consumers mapping the creator economy into five territories: audio, video, short-form clips, newsletters, and social platforms.
• Tom Webster's follow-up analysis, The Format That Travels, uses the Atlas data to argue audio wins the ad environment battle, capturing 78% of hands-busy listening moments and topping every platform on listener trust and ad receptivity.
• Miroma Group acquired audio advertising agency Ad Results Media, marking a major U.S. expansion move that folds ARM's podcast-native performance advertising expertise into Miroma's broader agency portfolio.
• Ben Robins' latest Purchase Funnel installment digs into UK podcast ad conversion data, finding strong purchase rates among younger listeners but a notable gap among listeners 55 and older compared with other platforms.
• Cannes Lions recaps from Next Audio's Lemya Soltani and Sounds Profitable's Bryan Barletta highlight how podcast networking events can be run on a shoestring budget, alongside a new Sounds Profitable YouTube panel on why niche podcast communities can outperform broad-reach shows on advertiser metrics.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

Today in the business of podcasting:

• A new Sounds Profitable report, The Podcast Atlas, finds audio podcasts lead every creator-economy format on trust, with 58% of listeners rating audio highest for factual accuracy and only 31% skeptical of its ad claims, even as video and clips drive more immediate purchase action.
• Keyari Page argues the creator economy hasn't replaced traditional media but reorganized it entirely around direct audience relationships, with creator-led models becoming core commercial infrastructure for modern media.
• A five-market study from NumberEight finds podcast audiences split nearly evenly by gender and skew Millennial, challenging assumptions that listeners are uniformly young or male and pointing to real variation by market and age group.
• Signal Hill Insights' Paul Riismandel highlights data showing U.S. weekly podcast consumers grew 45% since 2022, with YouTube and Spotify driving new-listener growth as Apple Podcasts' app share declines.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

Audio podcasting reaches listeners in hands-busy, on-the-go moments no other format can, and new Podcast Atlas data shows it earns their full attention.

• Written by Tom Webster
• Edited and narrated by Gavin Gaddis

Find the full article here.

Today in the business of podcasting:

• Podcast Movement has received nearly 800 submissions for the upcoming New York City edition of the conference and business summit.
• Next Audio co-founder Lemya Soltani detailed on LinkedIn how her MENA audio network hosted a Cannes Lions networking event without VC funding, cutting costs through shared boat rentals, local catering, and budget flights. Sounds Profitable's Bryan Barletta shared a similar low-cost Cannes playbook, showing brands don't need big budgets to make an impact at the festival.
• A Sounds Profitable panel from Cannes Lions, "Riches vs Niches," is now live on YouTube, featuring executives from SoundStack, Red Seat Ventures, ART19, and ADOPTER Media. The group makes the case that niche podcasts can outperform broad-reach shows on engagement, ad rates, and subscription revenue.
• Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment and Mondo Metrics launched the Women's Sports Index, a real-time platform benchmarking media value across women's sports using social data. The tool aims to fill gaps left by traditional ratings metrics as new women's sports leagues build fan bases largely through social media.
• Nielsen's May 2026 survey found PM drive listening now leads AM drive across the top 10 U.S. radio markets, with afternoon share continuing to grow year over year. The trend challenges long-standing assumptions about morning drive's dominance in radio ad planning.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

Today in the business of podcasting:

• Reminder: Sounds Profitable's latest research, The Podcast Atlas, will debut tomorrow, July 1, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern in a live webinar hosted by Tom Webster. Registration is free and open now, grab your virtual seat!
• Miroma Group has acquired performance audio advertising agency Ad Results Media, with CEO Jordan Fox framing the deal as a major U.S. expansion that brings ARM's podcast-native performance advertising into Miroma's broader portfolio.
• Ben Robins' latest UK Advertising Landscape installment finds 44% of UK podcast listeners aged 18 to 34 made a purchase after hearing a podcast ad, and flags the 55-plus demographic as a meaningful untapped opportunity for podcast advertisers.
• YouTube has retired BrandConnect in favor of Creator Partnerships built into Google Ads, monetizing brand amplification of creator content while controlling discovery, distribution, and measurement rather than taking a commission on creator deals.
• Podnews editor James Cridland tests whether HLS streaming improves podcast consumption measurement, concluding the data is clearer than traditional downloads but that browser buffering and inconsistent play definitions across apps still limit meaningful measurement gains.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

Today in the business of podcasting:

• Registration for The Podcast Atlas debut webinar on July 1 at 2pm Eastern is available here.
• New Sounds Profitable research from The Podcast Atlas finds 73% of podcast listeners would follow a creator from audio to video and 71% from long-form episodes to short-form clips, showing audience loyalty is tied to creators rather than formats.
• iHeartMedia expands its advertising partnership with Amazon Ads, becoming a reseller across Amazon Music, Prime Video, Twitch, Fire TV, and Alexa, giving its sellers access to Amazon's first-party shopping and streaming data.
• Owl & Co. founder Hernan Lopez shares findings from the second annual Global Podcast Economy Report, revealing that ten companies capture roughly 60% of U.S. podcast advertising revenue alongside a vibrant long tail of smaller players.
• DoubleVerify launches DV Neura, an AI engine that unifies media verification, content classification, and campaign optimization, and can recommend campaign changes across its DV Media AdVantage Platform.
• Oxford Road's ORBIT tool releases its June 2026 ranking of the top 15 Entertainment and Media podcasts, with The Popcast with Knox and Jamie taking the top spot and the data favoring show-level buying over genre-level approaches.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

Today in the business of podcasting:

• Register here for the Podcast Atlas debut webinar next week!
• Two new Sounds Profitable studies reshape the discovery conversation: the Podcast Discovery Playbook 2026, co-published with JAR Podcast Solutions, finds 61% of listeners discover shows through YouTube and social media, while Tom Webster's A New Map for Podcasting and the forthcoming Podcast Atlas argue that platform-native vertical clips, not trailers, drive discovery for audiences under 35.
• Two industry leaders weigh in on SoundsProfitable.com: Triton Digital's Mattia Verzella explains why cross-channel CPM comparisons mislead publishers and details the floor-pricing "triangle of sadness," and Voxtopica's Richard Fawal argues that mission-driven podcasters at nonprofits, universities, and government agencies deserve research, pricing, and recognition the industry has yet to provide.
• New data digs into audio's ad effectiveness: the YouGov U.S. Podcast Advertising Report 2026 finds podcast ads are the most-skipped yet least-annoying format, with 60% of listeners taking action after hearing one, while Sounds Profitable and Veritonic launch a free preview of Veritonic Instant Insights to test whether video ad creative holds up as audio before launch.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

Today in the business of podcasting:

• Register here for the Podcast Atlas debut webinar next week!
• Tom Webster previews The Podcast Atlas, a new Sounds Profitable research report debuting at Vidcon that maps how audiences move across audio, video, clips, social, and newsletters, finding that vertical clips from platform-native creators drive podcast discovery for listeners under 35 far more than trailers or podcast ads.
• Richard Fawal, founder and CEO of Voxtopica, argues that mission-driven podcasters at nonprofits, universities, and government agencies are overlooked by the industry, and calls for research, benchmarks, and pricing that recognize their impact beyond downloads and CPMs.
• A global study of 1,262 campaigns from the Effie x System1 Databank, presented by Mark Ritson at Cannes Lions 2026, finds that campaigns using audio delivered 75% higher profits, 81% greater trust, and 19% more customer acquisition, with profits roughly doubling when audio is paired with emotional creative.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

Today in the business of podcasting:

• Sounds Profitable and Veritonic launched a free preview of Veritonic Instant Insights, a tool that tests audio and video ad creative before launch and returns awareness and intent signals across podcast, YouTube, CTV, social, and streaming, benchmarked against more than a decade of testing data.
• A new joint study from Radiocentre, the Radio Advertising Bureau, and Commercial Radio & Audio Australia, spanning 1,262 campaigns over 17 years, found that adding audio to the marketing mix delivers a 75% profit uplift, an 81% increase in consumer trust, and a 19% gain in customer acquisition.
• Prediction market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket are moving into podcasting, with Kalshi backing the Men in Blazers World Cup recap show Night Cup and Polymarket launching the weekly pop culture show What Are the Odds? with Dear Media.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

Tom previews of The Podcast Atlas, a new study mapping how audiences now move across audio, video, clips, social, and newsletters.

He argues podcasting is now a territory creators live in, not a single thing they make. Using listeners under 35, he shows why reaching them means going vertical with native clips and organic creators, not the old trailer-and-swap launch kit, ahead of the full Atlas premiere in a webinar July 1 at 2pm Eastern.

• Written by Tom Webster
• Edited and narrated by Gavin Gaddis

Find the full article here.

Register here for the Podcast Atlas webinar.