Awards columnist Schneider highlights how the chat podcast has effectively usurped traditional broadcast talk shows in ubiquity. Clips of Conan O’Brien interviewing guests in a podcast studio perform as well (if not better) than the legacy TV talk shows he left behind. Taylor Swift announced her new album on a sports podcast. A quote from the article:
“This year, just 13 talk shows were submitted to the Emmys, which is why we only had three nominees (nominations are based on the number of submissions received in a category; if there are between eight and 19 entrants, the Academy divides the number of submissions by four and rounds to the nearest whole number). And that number will continue to shrink, as “The Late Show” has one year of eligibility left before it goes away. Even hosts like Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel are realistic that the age of the traditional network talker is ending — which is why we need to prepare for the evolution.”
While the Golden Globes adding a podcast-exclusive category is nice, Schneider argues the way to save talk show categories is to acknowledge where modern talk shows are: TV and video podcasting.
Two Surprising Facts About Platform Consumption In 2025 by Tom Webster
Webster goes more into detail over a favorite slide of The Podcast Landscape 2025 data teased at Podcast Movement. The slide focuses on American respondents 18+ using Spotify or YouTube how much of their podcast consumption was watching, not listening, to video podcasts.
Only a slight majority of YouTube podcast consumers actually watch more than half of their podcasts (with only 34% saying they watch more than 75% of their podcasts as video). Which means just under half of YouTube podcast consumers primarily listen, even if it’s a video podcast. This data supports Webster’s theory that getting a podcast on YouTube isn’t necessarily about being on video, it’s that YouTube is a really good app for podcast consumption full stop. There’s solid community, search, discovery, and engagement all rolled into an easy-to-use app that’s on just about every phone in the U.S. A quote from the article:
“That might have surprised you, but I have seen plenty of data over the years about background/minimized YouTube audio consumption, and this just confirms the vitality of audio-first content. The Spotify number, however, DID surprise me.”
The Spotify numbers show that, despite expectations and muscle memory of Spotify having historically been an audio app, video consumption has grown to the point 31% of respondents spend at least 50% of their podcast consumption time on Spotify watching video.
A video component is important for a podcast on a video platform, but if the audio doesn’t work in a vacuum the podcast won’t make sense to audiences who mostly listen.
A short but important one here: While it’s been public knowledge for some time that Megaphone customers will lose access to Chartable eventually, now there is a concrete date. According to Podnews reporting, an email went out to Megaphone customers detailing Chartable will fully sunset on December 8th of this year and where users can go to start using Links in Megaphone, Spotify’s in-house answer to Chartable SmartLinks. As of December 8th all SmartLinks will stop working.
Spotify launches a messaging feature in a bid to become more social by Ivan Mehta
The new chat feature allows one-on-one messaging within Spotify with someone the user has previously shared content with, such as being in a collaborative playlist, joining a Jam with, or accounts also in a Family or Duo plan with them. A quote from the article:
“Outside of Spotify, if someone sends a Spotify link to you on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Snapchat, or TikTok, you can tap on it and approve their request to chat. Alternatively, you can send an invite link to someone in your contacts.
The company said that users should continue sharing content outside Spotify, and the new message feature is a “complement” to that.”
While the messaging is intended to compliment collaborative playlist building and music discussion, having more communication/fan engagement in one of the bigger podcast apps has to be a net positive for podcasting
Finally, it’s time for my Quick Hits. These are articles that didn’t quite make the cut for today’s issue, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week:
- I was a busy bee at Podcast Movement and have a couple interviews to share with you! First, journalist and Casuals host Katie Nolan talked about her experience joining podcasting, and then Ozen.fm co-founder Rodrigo Tigre talks about his motivations for starting the company and bridging tech gaps in underserved podcast markets.
- Podstock has announced a feature called Episode 360 that consolidates engagement statistics from short-form clips back to the parent podcast episode they were clipped from.
- Acast has launched Ads Academy, a platform that currently has two free courses teaching both basics (102) and intermediary (102) podcast advertising.
- Magellan AI and Australian Radio Network have published the first Australia Quarterly Benchmark, this first one covering Q2 2025.
