Sounds Profitable

Sounds Profitable

The pace of change the podcast industry is undergoing is staggering. The implications for podcasters, hosting providers, podcast listening app developers, and advertisers and agencies are enormous. And so is the growth potential. Presented as a companion to the weekly newsletter of the same name, our podcast provides you with direct access to our narrated articles, interviews with industry experts, bleeding-edge research, and can't miss industry news recaps. That Sounds Profitable, right? Assumptions and conventional wisdom will be challenged. Easy answers with no proof of efficacy will be exposed. Because the thinking that got podcast advertising close to a billion dollars annually will need to be drastically overhauled to bring in the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars podcast advertising deserves.

Episodes

Podcast Ads Drive Action, Local Radio Reporting Returning, & More

July 30, 2025 • 6 mins
Today in the business of podcasting: Sounds Profitable has published a new report called Driving to Action, Andreessen Horowitz is looking to pay $400k to build out a podcast network, how broadcasters are adapting to young sports fans' desire for instant clips and highlights, and a Fox affiliate in Grand Rapids is the latest Scripps TV station to assign designated neighborhood reporters. 

Find links to every article mentioned by hea...
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Spotify Hypes Audiobooks, Overwhelming Ad Load, & More

July 29, 2025 • 6 mins
Today in the business of podcasting: Spotify promotes audiobook listening with music language, a Reddit thread on /r/podcasts strikes up conversations about egregious pre-rolls, why settle for likes when brands can foster love, and Google rebuffs Pew report claiming AI summary search results are causing a decrease in clicks to webpages. 

Find links to every article mentioned by heading to The Download's section of SoundsProfitable.c...
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Comedy as a PR Tool, U.S. Tops Acast Q2 Markets, & More

July 28, 2025 • 5 mins
Today in the business of podcasting: Acast crosses milestone with the U.S. becoming their highest-contributing single podcast market, Maximum Effort produces a satirical comedy ad for Astronomer, and Adweek looks at the growth and hiring spree happening with smaller, indie ad agencies.

Register now for our upcoming webinar!

Find links to every article mentioned by going to the Download section of SoundsProfitable.com, or click here t...
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Remembering Audio in Video Boom, Podcasting's Late-Night Appeal, & More

July 25, 2025 • 11 mins
This week in the business of podcasting: Why Sharon Taylor argues podcasting is losing sight of its audio roots, what Tom Webster learned from the longest-running one-person show in Vegas, an interview with OpusClip's Louis Roberts, and what the death of TheLate Show means for podcasting. 

Find links to every article mentioned by heading to the Download section of SoundsProfitable.com, or clicking here to go straight to today's entr...
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Looking @ Super Listeners, Recognizing Comedy Podcasts & More

July 24, 2025 • 5 mins
Today in the business of podcasting: a look at Spotify's "super-listeners", what Tom Webster learned from a magician that applies to podcasting, and the Just for Laughs festival is awarding a Podcast of the Year during this year's festival. 

Find links to every article mentioned by heading to the Download section of SoundsProfitable.com, or clicking here to go straight to today's entry.
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How Podcasts Are Overtaking Late-Night, Apple on Listener Privacy, & More

July 23, 2025 • 5 mins
Today in the business of podcasting: Apple details how they protect listener privacy in listening reports, Steve Goldsten writes on how podcasting has largely usurped the classic late-night talk show, Sharon Taylor argues why video podcasting narratives leave audio behind, and an interview with OpusClip's Louis Roberts. 

Find links to every article mentioned by heading to the Download section of SoundsProfitable.com, or by clicking ...
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What I Learned From The Longest-running One-Person Show in Vegas

July 23, 2025 • 10 mins
Audience engagement is the true magic that makes shows stick, who better to learn from than actual magicians? 
  • Written and narrated by Tom Webster
  • Edited by Bryan Barletta and Gavin Gaddis
  • Audio editing by Gavin Gaddis
Register for Sounds Profitable's next research webinar.

Find the full article here on Sounds Profitable.
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Modern Podcast Monetization, AI @ Ad Awards, & More

July 22, 2025 • 6 mins
Today in the business of podcasting: what the death of The Late Show might say about linear TV in general, a look at Joe Budden's income streams, advertising awards race to tighten up generative AI guidelines after Cannes Lions, Spotify launches Audiobooks+ in European markets and Canada, and 6AM City seeks to automate local newsletter production with Good Daily's AI. 

Find links to every article mentioned by heading to The Download...
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Apple Podcasts Data Upgrade, Public Broadcast Funding, & More

July 21, 2025 • 6 mins
Today in the business of podcasting: Apple Podcasts have new listener reports (and Dan Misener has a suggestion for a future one), The New York Times looks at the audience of multi-hour chat podcasts, an overlook at how public broadcasting is impacted by the Senate rescinding $1b in funding, Nicolle Wallce's MSNBC podcast now is aired on MSNBC proper, and Sounds Profitable won the 2025 Content Marketing Institute award for Best Dat...
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Audioboom Acquires Adelicious, Podcasting's Growth Mindset, & More

July 18, 2025 • 10 mins
This week in the business of podcasting.

  • Audioboom has acquired Adelicious
  • Selling the health & fitness podcast mindset
  • Content creators shut out of the Emmys for a second year running
  • The power of podcast search optimization
  • Google is indexing Instagram
  • Video podcasting and YouTube production is creating jobs in an otherwise hurting Hollywood.

Find links to every article discussed by heading to the Download's section of Soun...
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Emmy Creator Shutout, SiriusXM Play Reveal, & More

July 16, 2025 • 7 mins
Today in the business of podcasting: SiriusXM launches an ad-supported tier, Audioboom acquires Adelicious, how Kids & Family podcasts are perfect for the "nag factor", content creators once again left out of the Emmys, and Acast reports on a podcast campaign run for KFC in Australia. 

Find links to every article discussed by heading to the Download's section of SoundsProfitable.com, or clicking here to head straight to the post...
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Gemini Now Sees Instagram, IAB Tech Lab AI Scraping Initiative, & More

July 15, 2025 • 5 mins
Today in the business of podcasting: Google is now indexing Instagram, Ausha's Jennfer Han talks about a recent BBC Studios case study, Digiday looks at the creator industrial complex, and IAB Tech Lab is working on an intiative to monetize LLMs scraping content and give control back to publishers. 

Find links to every article discussed by heading to the Download's section of SoundsProfitable.com, or clicking here to head straight t...
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Audioboom's Q2, Video Podcasts Drive Hollywood Jobs, & More

July 14, 2025 • 4 mins
Today in the business of podcasting: Audioboom posts profit in Q2, CMOs seek stability and cutting out the middleman with content creator marketing, and the LA Times covers the burgeoning video production job market caused by the rise of YouTubers and video podcasting. 

Find links to every article discussed by heading to the Download's section of SoundsProfitable.com, or clicking here to head straight to the post for today's episode...
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YouTube Restricting Reuploads, Retaining Podcasting's Spark, & More

July 11, 2025 • 9 mins
This week in the business of podcasting: 
  • There's preservationists who want to save the soul of podcasting, there's growth advocates that welcome the YouTubeifiaction of podcasts. Tom Webster argues both are right, and that binary might be hurting podcasting's ability to preserve its "soul." 
  • The Podcast Host and Alitu CEO Colin Gray talks about the sort-of surprise that was seeing Alitu on stream during Apple's WWDC presentation...
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Preserving Podcasting's Spark, Stopping Slop Content, & More

July 10, 2025 • 7 mins
Today in the business of podcasting: how podcasting can preserve its spark whiel growing into video, how Alityu ended up on screen at WWDC, YouTube's preparing to crack down on reuploaded/generated content, Jasmine Crockett addresses the need for media-savvy politicians for podcast appearances, and two major AI players working on their own browsers to challenge Google's search engine dominance. 

Find links to every article mentioned...
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Managing Many Metrics, The Podcast Exchange Restructuring, & More

July 9, 2025 • 5 mins
Today in the business of podcasting: The Streaming Wars looks at how "watch hours" can be turned into a valuable metric, The Podcast Exchange announces it is filing a Notion of Intention in Canadian bankruptcy court, Signal Hill Insights looks at three common reasons host-read ads fall short, and WPP issues profit warning as Q2 perfomance falls below expectations. 

Links to every article covered can be found in today's issue of the ...
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The Podcast Preservation Paradox

July 9, 2025 • 12 mins
Preservationists fear video stealing podcasting’s soul, growth advocates celebrate YouTube driving more to the medium. Thing is, they’re both right.
  • Written and narrated by Tom Webster
  • Edited by Bryan Barletta and Gavin Gaddis
  • Audio editing by Gavin Gaddis

Find the full article here on Sounds Profitable.
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India's Podcasting Boom, Spotify Returns Pod.Link, & More

July 8, 2025 • 6 mins
Today in the business of podcasting: podcasting is booming in India, Moonbug has a study into how parents consume ad-supported media, Spotify is giving pod.link back to its original developer, an explanation of the Spotify-approved generative AI "band" Velvet Sundown, and Triton Digital has a new annual study on Canadian podcast listner behavior. 

Find links to every article mentioned in today's episode post on SoundsProfitable.com
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Amazon x Roku, Spotify Upgrades Car Listening, & More

July 7, 2025 • 5 mins
Today in the business of podcasting: Amazon's DSP is selling Roku inventory, a case study of a podcast that lowered downloads but upped audience engagement, Spotify Jam has been updated in Android Auto, and YouTube calls for UK government to embrace content creators. 

Find links to every article mentioned in today's episode in this post on SoundsProfitable.com


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Lessons from Cannes, Covering Demos w. Podcasting, & More

June 27, 2025 • 10 mins
This week in the business of podcasting: the power of Health & Wellness and Self-Improvement podcast consumers, how podcasting can cover demographic blind spots, lessons from Cannes Lions, and YouTube content coming to Spotify video. 

Links to every article mentioned can be found here on SoundsProfitable.com.
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