Why Podcasting’s Advertising Advantage Is Bigger Than We Thought by Tom Webster
This week Sounds Profitable published the second part to The Advertising Landscape, the largest study of podcast advertising effectiveness in the U.S. Built from a survey of 5,005 American respondents aged 18+, the report has been divided up into sections to make core findings digestible.
Part two focuses on trust and attention specifically, and as Tom Webster’s latest article highlights, podcasting comes with a lot of trust. 46% of Americans trust podcast content moderation (for a comparison, Facebook is at 26% and Reddit is 25%). 51% believe podcast content is factual and accurate, while 48% believe podcast advertising claims are true. A quote from Webster:
“To put this in perspective, social media platforms average in the 30s for advertising claim believability. That’s not just a small difference—that’s a fundamentally different relationship between audience and content. Across virtually every trust metric we measured, social platforms consistently ranked at the bottom. Discord, Facebook, Reddit, and Threads all scored between 19% and 25% on advertising message trust.
This creates what I’m calling a “halo effect” in reverse—the general lack of content credibility on these platforms creates a negative association that drags down advertising effectiveness. People don’t just not trust the ads; they don’t trust the environment in which they appear.”
He goes on to look at the high trust in podcasts/podcast advertising found in multicultural audiences. Black respondents ranked 51% trust in podcast advertising voices. Hispanic/Latino audiences scored 49%, and Asian audiences ranked podcast ad trust at 46%. Once again, for comparison’s sake, Hispanic/Latino audiences rated podcast advertising 19 points higher in authenticity than social media. As Webster said: “That’s not just a preference—that’s a revelation.”
For more on the new chapter of The Advertising Landscape, Digiday’s Alexander Lee got an early look at the report. Also, Tom Webster’s half-hour webinar debuting the report and key findings can be found alongside the report itself here on Sounds Profitable.
HLS Streaming: The Future of Video Podcasts in RSS by Justin Jackson
The Podcast Standards Project has a new proposal of bringing HLS streaming to the podcast mainstream. HLS (HTTP Live Streaming), originally developed by Apple, is a streaming protocol that uses adaptive bitrate to allow users to stream video without downloading an entire file. All while automatically adjusting quality based on internet connection speed to ensure steady playback.
HLS would also have the benefit of streaming audio as well, giving RSS feeds more ability to report back consumption analytics and measurement capabilities. As the post says, HLS could give creators and hosting platforms YouTube-level insights into their podcast content while still preserving the open, decentralized nature of RSS podcasting. A quote from Justin Jackson’s conclusion to the article:
“If we don’t nail this, we’ll be essentially telling podcasters that their only real options for podcast video are YouTube and Spotify.”
Here Jackson hits the nail on the head: there is a time limit, and podcasting is on the clock. Without several big voices advocating for change – regardless of how difficult it might be to convince walled gardens to buy into the change – if podcasting waits too long we as an industry will have no chance of maintaining (let alone growing) the core distribution method that made podcasting viable in the first place.
NPR CEO Open Letter to Congress
Katherine Maher has published a statement regarding a recent memo from the White House urging Congress to reverse course and pull funds already appropriated for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, intended for fiscal year 2026/2027. A quote from Maher:
“Contrary to reports, there is no federal funding earmark for NPR or PBS programming. The CPB receives around $106 million — $9.58 million for radio and $96.78 million for TV — in annual funding that is set aside for public media program producers. If either PBS or NPR want to access this funding, they must apply to CPB in a competitive grant application process.”
Were the funds rescinded, a massive amount of public media stations across the country would be impacted. Since 1975 public media has received bipartisan support in Congress. Maher says this move to “save” money by withdrawing already-committed funds is the biggest threat to public media in U.S. history with a stunt that would have negligible impact on the national deficit or taxpayers. All while simultaneously impacting taxpayers by deleting access to local news, national reporting, the arts, and emergency alerting services.
Finally, it’s time for our Quick Hits. These are articles that didn’t quite make the cut for today’s episode, but are still worth including in your weekend reading. This week:
- Jar Audio has a new piece called How We Actually Sell Podcasts to Skeptical Decision-Makers about their pitching process.
- QCODE and the podcast And That’s Why We Drink have teamed up to launch Para Pods Network, a network designed to “bring authentic, bold voices to the forefront.”
- Wondercraft has launched Convo Mode, a feature that allows users to script conversations like a screenplay that Wondercraft then generates a multi-speaker audio file using multiple generated voices to mimic a podcast conversation.
- Forbes covers Steven Bartlett becoming co-owner of creator commerce platform Stan.
- Kast Media has finished their Chapter 11 restructuring and finished with 85% support, maintaining operating profit during the process.
- LinkFire has a blog detailing lessons learned at The Podcast Show London.
