IAB Releases Draft Legislation Addressing AI Scraping
The new proposed draft, titled AI Accountability for Publishers Act, aims to address the large-scale scraping of publisher content for training data. IAB President David Cohen’s official statement explains the proposed language will protect publishers from AI companies becoming “unjustly enriched”, benefitting at the expense of publishers (scraping their data) with nothing in return. “It’s basic fairness: you take my content, you pay for it.”
State of Data 2026: The AI-Powered Measurement Transformation
The new State of Data report finds audio is still struggling to find credit in marketing mix models. As Inside Audio Marketing highlights, 39% of MMM users with line-of-sight into each channel say podcasting is underrepresented in MMM currently (streaming audio in general scored 36%). Some hope is placed in the IAB’s estimate that AI-powered measurement tools could help unlock $32 billion in value over the next two years. Efficiencies that could flow downstream to audio.
Podscribe is back with another monthly industry ranker, this one tracking January. Those who’ve been in podcasting a minute will tell you January is historically a blah month for downloads/plays in the grand scheme of the year. To that note, quite a few top podcasts and publishers are holding place from December, but a few are showing growth even in the New Year’s doldrums. Crime Junkie takes #1 in audio reach (a 45% increase month over month), Libsyn Ads moved up three spots to #5 in monthly downloads and views, and BetterHelp is back in the $1 spot for spend with an estimated $6.8m.
Indie podcasters get onto the Radio France platform
The Syndicate of Independent Audio Producers (PIA) has signed a distribution agreement with Radio France, opening the door to editorial podcasts produced by “independent professional publishers” being published on both the RF app and website. As part of the deal, the PIA is positioned as the organization that will propose a selection of indie French podcasts that meet production and editorial standards for RF distribution. The arrangement is built around dual consent, with the podcasts submitting themselves for inclusion while Radio France retains final editorial control over what appears in the app.
CBC Podcasts: Open Call for Pitches
Attention, Canadian readers! Yes, I touched on this a couple weeks back but now the page is live, so it bears repeating: the CBC is currently accepting pitches for four different CBC umbrella feeds. Submissions are open through April 1st. The CBC is looking for “ambitious and exciting” new series pitches that can sustain multiple episodes of investigative/documentary style podcasting.
As for the rest of the news…
Podcast Nation has further cemented their relationship with United Talent Agency, adding three new podcasts to their roster (Outlore with Eleanor Neale, The Florence Given Show, and Petty Crimes).
Audioboom and Crooked Media have entered into a commercial and hosting partnership, in which Audioboom will provide hosting, global distribution, and network advertising sales for Crooked’s entire podcast portfolio.
Daylight and Nick van der Kilk have kicked off a new Love + Radio ten part series titled Love + Radio: Blood Money positioned as “Sons of Anarchy meets S-Town.”
Gamut Podcast Network kicks off a new season of their true crime series American Nightmares today.
EMARKETER has a new bite-sized report built with Amazon Ads research and a survey of 100 US marketers about their thoughts on digital audio.
