October 21, 2025

The first ranker for podcasts where the ads really work

4 minutes

Sponsored by Supporting Cast. Supporting Cast is a 🇨🇭 Swiss army knife for podcast subscriptions. Publish blog posts and videos, send newsletters, build a members-only community, and deliver exclusive audio — all in one place.

Advertisers aren’t (just?) looking for big audiences and big download numbers. Oxford Road suggests that they’re actually looking for advertising that works: and have published ORBIT: the first podcast ranker measured by ad performance, based on $1.6bn of advertising spend. CEO Dan Granger: “For 15 years, marketers have been making decisions without this data. That changes today.”

Interestingly, only one show appears in both ORBIT and the Edison Top 50 US podcasts: SiriusXM’s Megyn Kelly Show.

Want to win a Golden Globe award for your podcast? It’ll cost you. In a report behind a registration wall, Status has got hold of a deck from Penske Media, which it claims promotes a “Variety Creative Impact Award” for sale at $75,000 to help get your name in front of the judges; or just $35,000 will reportedly get you a glowing interview in Variety and “social amplification”. Both Variety and the Golden Globes are owned by Penske Media; the eligibility list, including Joe Rogan, Megyn Kelly, Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson, is seemingly based on audience reach.

A significant failure on Amazon Web Services led to fifteen hours of disruption to a number of services hosted at us-east-1, including some podcast hosting companies. Amazon systems deliver 63% of all podcast episodes.

> > > Read more of today’s podcast industry news stories on the Podnews website: and get our free daily newsletter.

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