Brands Are Paying More For Ads That Do Less by Tilde Herrera
Shutterstock’s 2025 Creative Impact Report finds marketing spend jumped 33% from 2023 to 2024, but the effect on purchase intent only increased 17%. Which leaves a 12% “impact gap” that seems to be growing over time, as the report finds a further 8% of gap grew through the first eight months of the year. Shutterstock director of creative strategy and insights Cal Roberts says brands aren’t keeping pace with behavioral changes to customer bases. And in losing sight of who their core audience is, they’re spending more to cast wider nets that return fewer hits. Relevance and authenticity are the name of the game. Oxford Road’s recent ORBIT Top 15 Podcasts Measured by Ad Performance report shows that’s especially true in podcasting, as some of the most widely agreed-upon “biggest podcasts” don’t crack the top fifteen shows that actually convert to sales. Shows with hyper-mobilized and engaged audiences are the ones actually getting brands the best bang for their buck. Where one would expect Rogan to sit at the top of the pile, instead Oxford Road found tabletop roleplaying livestream broadcast-to-podcast series Critical Role.
Could the Next Hit Podcaster Be… Your CFO? by Mark Stenberg
Morning Brew has announced a new podcast from their business-to-business arm HR Brew. The new show, People Person, is hosted by Kate Noel, senior vice president of people operations at Morning Brew. This follows a trend both within Morning Brew (e.g. Per My Last Email features the chief of staff and director of consumer revenue) and the wider B2B podcast sphere: executives sitting down in front of mics instead of influencers or journalists. A move that makes sense: if the goal is to connect your business with another business, why introduce a middleman to build that parasocial relationship when the company itself could be doing that vital connection-building?
Some creators say brands are delaying their holiday deals later than ever this year by Kimeko McCoy
Influencer agency Buttermilk tells Digiday that with factors like changing tariffs, economic performance, and uncertainty about how things will go with the upcoming American version of TikTok, brands are holding out on committing budgets this holiday season. Some content creators report a marked decrease in the number of brand deals/promotions of sales compared to last year. Brand marketers are reportedly pushing for syndication/cross-platform posting of short form content instead of just buying a TikTok or just buying a YouTube Short.
How To Harness Video and Social to Grow Audio
The National Association of Broadcasters’ New York Radio + Podcast Interactive Forum recently brought together creators and executives in podcasting. Back Pocket Studios’ founder Ben Dickstein spoke to the value of acknowledging “a clip” can be its own piece of interesting content. The History Channel audio-first podcast History this Week generates clips by treating them like a documentary would any voiceover: editing together montages of archival footage and photos relevant to the topic. Context and presentation are as important as getting the message of the podcast itself across. Audacy Senior Director, Podcast Revenue Partnerships Kate Rose added that social is less of a way to grow an audience and more of a way to keep in touch with one’s audience on platforms they actively use.
Is YouTube’s TV viewership plateauing?
Tubefilter looks at new data from Nielsen’s The Gauge report. YouTube got a larger share of TV traffic than any other content provider during most months of this and last year. In July of 2025 the platform hit 13.4% share of TV traffic, but in August things ticked down for the first time in years, hitting 13.1% (followed by 12.6% in September). The downward trend has left YouTube back where it was in May of this year. One theory is back-to-school has impacted screen-time for kids who use YouTube a lot while on break, but that theory struggles when 2024 data doesn’t reflect much of a summer bump.
As for the rest of the news…
- John Allen, known as MrBallen on YouTube, is moving to SiriusXM from Wondery. The new multiyear deal gives exclusive audio advertising sales rights to his flagship podcast The MrBallen Podcast: Strange Dark & Mysterious as well as the rights to his podcast network.
- Blue Wire has nine new podcasts coming to their slate, including two previously hosted on The Ringer.
- New senior leadership has been announced at Adelicious post-Audioboom acquisition, including Gemma O’Brien and Shaun Wilson being appointed joint Vice Presidents, UK Sales. Lora Elliott has been promoted to Director, Sales Operations.
- The Athletic and Amazon have partnered to launch a new video video series dubbed The Athletic Show, with weekly 30 minute episodes made available to Fire TV customers earlier than they go live on The Athletic.
- Industry pundit Nicholas Quah dropped by Here & Now with Scott Tong to discuss the evolution of the podcast industry.
- Podcast Nation has onboarded video-first podcast The Gstaad Guy.
