The Rehearsal Was Never the Point by Jack Levy
Table reads have long been a part of the fabric of Hollywood. They have existed in back rooms and private settings and have served as a fundamental storytelling tool. But Jack Levy, co-founder of Manifest Media Productions is challenging all of that with the Table Read podcast, a fiction podcast featuring award-winning actors and storytellers performing unproduced film and TV scripts. Levy shares how the table read format provides the consistency needed to create a quality podcast experience and grow an audience. A point that Levy and his team proved in real time during Podcast Movement Evolutions at SXSW where they performed the first-ever live recording of the podcast last week.
Why audio may be the missing piece in CTV strategy by Dave Sosson
AdsWizz Senior Manager, Business Development Dave Sosson writes about rising connected television (CTV) budgets. More impressions do not guarantee better performance in a fragmented attention economy. A 2023 SiriusXM Media and Nielsen study of 600 participants found retail campaigns combining audio advertising and CTV had a 12-point lift in aided recall in comparison to exclusively CTV campaigns. A 2025 study from EMG and SiriusXM, built from analysis of over 1,400 streaming audio campaigns for automotive dealerships, found adding streaming audio to CTV campaigns brought a 21.8% gain in local market share on average. By shifting some of a CTV budget over to audio, advertisers diversify the ways they connect with consumers. For example, Sosson proposes a retail campaign that promotes a deal via podcast ad, then reinforces it that evening with a CTV spot featuring visuals. Audio establishes context, CTV then deepens the story.
Madison And Wall Sees New Opportunities For Audio.
Media consulting firm Madison and Wall have updated their advertising outlook for 2026. Total U.S. ad spend is forecast to increase 8.1% year-over-year, up from their previous estimate of 6.6%. The move is motivated by advertisers raising budgets across the board, according to Madison and Wall Managing Director Luke Stillman. Digital audio, including broadcaster streaming revenue, podcast ads, and music streaming services, is anticipated to grow 4% this year. Traditional audio advertising linked to radio is anticipated to decline 4%.Stillman says making audio inventory as convenient as possible will be an important factor in promoting more ad spend growth.
As for the rest of the news…
- Winners from SXSW and Podcast Movement Evolutions award ceremonies are posted! Today I bring you Oxford Road’s rundown of the Indie PaC Awards winners, as well as iHeartMedia’s recap of the iHeartPodcast Awards.
- Daylight Media has announced a strategic partnership with Barometer to integrate their third party data and scale Daylight’s monetization.
- Sport Social Podcast Network has partnered with The Charles Tyrwhitt Sports Book Awards to sponsor the inaugural Sports Podcast of the Year award. Submissions are now open and close March 31.
- Podpage has acquired Dave Jackson’s School of Podcasting, adding a free tier that will feature a new How to Podcast course.
- This week iHeartRadio officially launches their collaboration with TikTok in the form of the TikTok Podcast Network, with Tubefilter covering the initial slate of shows and a new iHeart digital and terrestrial radio station dubbed TikTok Radio from iHeart.
- Consumable has a writeup of lessons learned from RampUp 2026 in San Francisco, including the need for audio to be in the identity-driven audio conversation.
