Anticipating AWNY 2026, Creator Marketing @ IRL Events, & More

Anticipating AWNY 2026, Creator Marketing @ IRL Events, & More

October 5, 2026

Digiday’s guide to what’s in and out for Advertising Week NY 2026 by Seb Joseph

Digiday’s Seb Joseph is back with another annual preview of Advertising Week New York. In addition to his roundup, I’ll quickly note Pod-Tales & Cocktails is returning tomorrow night in NYC alongside AWNY. A few tickets are still available. Also, same as last year, Sounds Profitable will be hosting a stage in The Podcast Zone. Swing on by, meet the crew! Except for me, I will be home with a sniffly nose and well-meaning but emotionally distant cats.

The Podcast Landscape 2026 Coverage Roundup

Last week Sounds Profitable published the first part of The Podcast Landscape 2026, a census-weighted survey of 5,473 U.S. adults fielded in August 2026. To kick off the week, I’ve got a couple articles covering different aspects of the report. Barrett Media highlights that 65% of monthly listeners regularly follow three or fewer shows (24% follow three, 26% follow two and 15% follow one), and that 34% started listening within the past year, up from 28% in 2025. Podcast News Daily focuses on video and platforms: 44% watched a video podcast in the past week, up from 40%, while only 17% still expect a podcast to be audio-only. In its first year carrying podcasts, Netflix was named by 21% of podcast consumers, behind YouTube (63%) and Spotify (33%) and ahead of Apple Podcasts (15%), and the share naming a podcast-specific app as their most-used platform fell from 19% to 15%.

‘The future is going to be in real life’: IRL events are becoming the new proof point for creator marketing by Seb Joseph

Creators are turning to live events as proof of real community and as a measurable return for brands, with turnout, sales and sign-ups replacing follower counts. Dude Perfect is in its sixth year of U.S. stadium tours with more than 200,000 fans through the gates in 2025, Alex Cooper’s Unwell Tour was sponsored by White Claw, and AT&T sponsored all of Ludwig Ahgren’s events for six months last year. MKTG Sports + Entertainment data cited in the piece shows 45% of sports fans craving more physical and offline experiences as digital and AI content grows, and 62% believing community in sports can only be built through real-life experiences. As monetizing videos natively becomes harder, live events sell something clip-farms can’t easily freeboot.

Fable and Folly is to close

The audio fiction network Fable and Folly will close on December 31, 2026, after six years. Founders Sean, Eli and Russ say the podcast industry has changed, especially on the advertising side, and that keeping pace would take a level of investment they don’t believe they can responsibly commit to right now. The network grew from a dozen shows in 2020 to a roster of more than 200, and its shows are not going away: through the end of the year it is helping producers migrate to new hosting and advertising partners. Fable and Folly Plus subscribers keep ad-free episodes on shows that remain with the network through year-end, yearly renewals have been deactivated, and monthly subscribers are advised to cancel and support creators directly through their own sites or Patreon.

Podcorn, a.k.a. Audacy Creator Lab, is closing down

Audacy is closing Audacy Creator Lab, its podcast hosting and monetization service, on November 1, Podnews reports. The service launched as Podcorn in 2019 and was acquired by Audacy for $22.5 million in 2021, and the Creator Lab rebrand was announced at Podcast Movement Evolutions in April 2025. Podcast Index data shows about 426 shows hosted on the platform, and creators with a Podcorn prefix enabled on their feeds need to remove it by the end of the month.

…as for the rest of the news: