🚨Before we get into the news🚨: Sounds Profitable is hosting a webinar next Wednesday, March 12, at 2 PM Eastern. Tom Webster will be joined by Liz Hames from JAR Audio and special guest Andrea Marquez from Amazon as they present The Power of Branded Podcasts, featuring new research from Sounds Profitable and a key case study from Amazon. Register for this free event here and be the first to receive the report!
Reviewing Spotify’s Pivot to Video By Amanda McLoughlin
Multitude Podcasts’ founder and CEO took to LinkedIn to share her thoughts on the efficacy of Spotify’s new Spotify Partner Program, including why one of her clients ultimately chose to opt out after one month in the program. According to McLoughlin, since opting in to the program requires the show to have its normal RSS feed replaced by a Spotify-hosted stream for listeners on the Spotify app specifically, it can no longer insert dynamic ads from the publisher at all. Streaming Ad Insertion by Spotify Ad Network (SPAN) is still available for non-premium Spotify users. If the user has Spotify Premium, the podcast, if eligible, instead is paid from the Creator Program, which has not fully disclosed how payments are decided. A client of McLoughlin’s ultimately found that this caused opting into the Partner Program to be more of a hit to their overall earnings than it was worth, and opted out. Sounds Profitable’s Bryan Barletta noted, “Spotify Ad Network’s (SPAN) revenue for publishers can be incredibly powerful. And while the emphasis on adopting video on Spotify has been around the impact to a publisher selling their own dynamically inserted ads, Spotify is also competing with themselves with this new product, pitting proven SPAN revenue against the unknowns of creator payouts that we don’t have enough clarity on as we’re only one month deep”.
ADOPTER Media Launches New Podcast: AdStops: Podcast Advertising on Track
New from Adopter Media, a podcast looking to highlight one of the most overlooked roles in podcast business: Ad Operations. Hosted by Tiffany Rubenstein, COO and Co-Founder of ADOPTER Media, and Angela Stiveson, Director of Ad Operations, the show is a behind-the-scenes look at the AdOps teams working in podcasting and, increasingly, YouTube. Said Rubenstein in the premiere episode, “One of my favorite quotes in life has been, for a very long time, ‘If you are proactive, focus on preparing. If you are reactive, you end up focusing on repairing’. I think for ad operations, what we do all day long is preparing… Our whole job is to make it simple and easy and be prepared ahead of time.” AdStops is streaming wherever you get your podcasts.
As podcasting’s dance with video continues, new data from IAB Australia is prompting many podcasters to look at influencer deals and say: I’ll have what they’re having. In the wake of the 2025 Audio Summit in Melbourne, during which data was shared that highlights the decreasing differences between traditional influencers and podcasters, many shows’ addition of video to their content output is making those differences even smaller. As video production increases per-episode production costs, advertisers are being asked to pay more per campaign in order for shows to break even- a deal that still results in those campaigns being pushed to wider audiences through the addition of a video channel. When it comes to building a personal brand, podcasters can look to influencers there as well. In an interview for MediaWeek, Ampel’s chief audio officer Josh Butt advised that authenticity is key to creating not just palatable, but engaging, branded content: “Some of the best stuff out there has been paid for by brands. TV shows like MasterChef and home renovation programs have always relied on brand partnerships in one way or another”.
As for the rest of the news…
- Evergreen Podcasts has launched their own FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television) channel that features podcasts on the menu.
- SiriusXM has tapped Scott Walker as its new Chief Advertising Revenue Officer.
- The first show partners and speakers have been announced for The Podcast Show 2025– Sounds Profitable is both and so are several of our partners!
- Lower Street has released a recorded replay of their Podcasting Masterclass for Marketers from The Brand Podcast Summit 2025.
