Thanks to a historic blizzard interrupting flights and trains into New York City, the 2026 Ambies have been rescheduled to tonight, Tuesday the 24th. In addition to rescheduling the event, The Podcast Academy has pivoted to also livestream the event on their YouTube channel. The waiting room is now up and ready for the stream to start at 8:00 p.m. EST.
Apple Podcasts Is In On Video. Will Users Notice? by Jay Nachlis
While Apple Podcasts has supported video podcasting for quite some time, it has largely been siloed and de-emphasized in the user interface if a user doesn’t specifically throw “video” in a search term. In recent years, video podcasting has taken off. Reported podcast usage from survey respondents has shifted to include more and more people consuming video or both video and audio. Nachlis argues the hard part of beefing up video podcasting on Apple Podcasts is telling people it exists. It’ll take a concerted effort on Apple’s part to spread awareness that overrides years of muscle memory causing audiences to open YouTube whenever thinking about video.
Apple Just Moved the Center of Gravity in Podcasting by Steve Goldstein
In a new piece for Rain News, Amplifi CEO Steven Goldstein also reflects on the recent Apple Podcasts news, and the larger growth of video podcasting. With that growth comes a need for understanding why certain formats work. Audio podcasting started as an intentional medium. Audiences actively searched for a show, manually subscribed, and chose when and where to listen to specific episodes. Modern video is much more reactive, as recommendation algorithms and autoplay can drop a podcast in the lap of an unexpecting viewer with no prior context. As such, Goldstein stresses the importance of adopting a YouTube mentality to video podcast production: the first five seconds are crucial to retaining new viewers. Establishing clarity and the value of the content immediately has more chance of getting new viewers to stick. As his piece concludes: audio is chosen, video is recommended.
Australian podcast advertising benchmarks: Q4 2025
Magellan AI’s report on Q4 2025 pulled data from 9,498 podcast episodes released in Australia. Overall, podcast ad spend continued to climb with a 10% year over year increase for the quarter. The top growing industry of the quarter is retail, growing 53% quarter-over-quarter with investments from brands like Shopify, Chemist Warehouse, and 7-Eleven. Though the largest sector in Australian podcast advertising is financial services, with $1.7 million for the quarter.
Why Streamers Are Going All-In on Companion Podcasts by Tess Patton
An overview of the growing field that is television companion podcasts. While the genre used to be largely dominated by fans, the companies making the shows themselves have gotten into the game in a big way. From reality TV like The Traitors to scripted dramas like The Pitt, companion podcasts have all but replaced their distant cousin of aftershows. And, since they’re official productions, these new streamer-owned podcasts have the ability to regularly land big guests from the show being discussed. Patton does highlight one area fan-run companion podcasts have an advantage: critique of the show itself. Official licensed podcasts have a higher likelihood to keep things light and avoid discussing controversy, while fan shows retain independence and outside perspective (for better or worse).
New Positions
Every now and then, there’s enough people being hired or moving to new positions in the business of podcasting I break them out into their own section. Congratulations to:
- Marshall Lewy, now Head of Audible Content, North America.
- Eric Barraud, now Chief Product Officer at AudioStack.
As for the rest of the news…
- Listener.com has launched Campaigns, a reporting solution that aims to give podcasters a unified system tracking podcast campaign performance across multiple distribution platforms.
- RSS.com has a new blog showcasing their new API for automation tools, including an example of an automated podcast production pipeline using Zapier.
- Glen Nelson Center at American Public Media Group has announced their fifth annual national startup competition for supporting “bold ideas that will reinvent local journalism.” A prize pot of $250k will be awarded to early-stage startups in three divisions. Submissions are due by March 10th, 2026.
- JAR Podcast Solutions has expanded out their YouTube-first video production practices, with special focus on treating YouTube as its own strategy from the ground up for podcasts.
- Climate change accountability podcast Drilled, from journalist Amy Westervelt, has joined the Pushkin podcast network ahead of a new season debuting in late April.
- PAVE Studios founder Max Cutler shares some insight on their Crime House label’s new original audio series The Final Hours.
- Goalhanger co-founder Tony Pastor has a new piece in Deadline discussing the power podcasting has to connect with younger audiences in comparison to traditional TV.
