Podnews reports Buzzcast, the official podcast of hosting platform Buzzsprout, is back on Spotify. Earlier this year they pulled the show, and in the new episode company co-founder Kevin Finn explains why Buzzsprout made the choice to leave and why it’s back. Reasons include Spotify appearing to be fixing the video lock-in issue Podnews highlighted in May, the platform is more open about podcasting as a whole, and Buzzsprout’s team wants its show on as many platforms as possible. Podnews reports the return as a signal that Spotify is addressing the restrictions that limited multiplatform distribution for creators.
Megaphone Switches to Spotify Ad Server on Friday
Megaphone, Spotify’s podcast hosting and ad platform, moves to Spotify Ad Server on Friday (July 17). Since Podnews first reported the migration in early May, one detail has changed: the maximum allowable ad duration is now 90 seconds rather than 60. VAST tags are no longer supported. Megaphone’s support documentation details the campaign management and pre-booking changes for podcasters and ad ops teams who traffic campaigns on the platform.
Marketers – Don’t Get Tripped Up By The Attention Span Myth by Brian Conlon
In a new Podnews guest article, DAX U.S. President Brian Conlon argues that audiences’ shrinking attention span is a myth, and that consumers are instead making deliberate choices about where to direct their attention. He points to Edison Research’s Infinite Dial 2026, which found 45% of Americans age 12 and older consumed a podcast in the previous week, the highest level the study has ever measured, as evidence that people still give sustained time to content they find valuable. Attention hasn’t disappeared, he argues. Instead, people’s tolerance for irrelevance has eroded.
Precision Targeting in a Privacy-First Audio Ecosystem
Ad Results Media makes the case that digital audio is structurally suited to privacy-first advertising because it never depended on third-party cookies, running instead on authenticated user relationships, first-party data, and contextual signals. The piece cites AdsWizz research from December showing contextual targeting represents 60% of targeting dimensions in global digital audio activation, and SiriusXM Media findings that 71% of consumers would stop supporting companies that mishandle their data. ARM advises marketers to layer privacy-safe signals, rather than hunt for a one-to-one cookie replacement.
…as for the rest of the news:
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On Friday, Podnews covered an ongoing story involving Apple Podcasts Connect says it is “currently experiencing issues with play counts” in Podcasts Analytics.
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James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems closes its reported $300 million acquisition of the Vox Media Podcast Network and New York magazine, keeping the nearly 50-show network under its current leadership.
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Bill Maher’s Club Random signs with Daylight Media for ad sales and distribution, alongside nine other shows joining the network.
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Backyard Ventures signs The Sketchy Podcast for exclusive advertising representation across the show’s podcast, YouTube channel, and social platforms.
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Inside Audio Marketing covers part two of Sounds Profitable’s Podcast Atlas.
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Actor Tom Holland joins historian Tom Holland on a special episode of The Rest Is History to discuss Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, in which the actor plays Telemachus.
