Identifying Podcast Ad Skips, PM Heads to NYC, & More

Identifying Podcast Ad Skips, PM Heads to NYC, & More

February 27, 2026

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Addressing Email Addresses

A quick peek behind the curtain: next week Sounds Profitable is switching newsletter providers. No changes are necessary on your end, just know that for a short period Sounds Profitable newsletters you are subscribed to will be sent from a Beehiiv email address (specifically the domain @mail.beehiiv.com). 

This is part of Beehiiv’s smart warming process for transitioning publications to a custom domain. You’ll start receiving emails from newsletters@soundsprofitable.com again sometime in the coming weeks. Replying to the temporary Beehiiv address reaches us, just like the original.

 

Podcast Movement Announces First-Ever New York City Flagship Event at Terminal 5

Start spreadin’ the news. This year’s Podcast Movement officially has a venue and dates! The conference is headed to New York City, specifically the venue Terminal 5 in Manhattan. Things kick off September 14th and run through the 18th. 

Daytime programming will pause on Wednesday, September 16th so attendees are free to engage with the advertising ecosystem at the IAB Upfronts. After that, Podcast Movement attendees can return to Terminal 5 for an evening afterparty hosted by Locked On Podcast Network and several other sponsors. 

The Sounds Profitable Business Summit is slated for the 14th and 15th, designed to be a premium executive-level experience built for podcast industry leaders, senior decision-makers, and brand and agency media buyers. The Summit will include carefully-curated keynotes and speaking opportunities, group sessions and workshops promoting strategic conversations to shape the future of audio and creator-led media, and curated networking designed to drive partnerships and deals. All with fully catered breakfast, lunches, and dinners (with seating charts designed to optimize networking connections). 

Sounds Profitable partners will receive early access to purchase tickets, as well as the ability to buy sharable tickets that can allow a different executive to attend each day of the conference. 

Podcast Movement Prime is slated for the 17th and 18th, intended for attendees of all stripes across podcasting. From hobbyists looking to grow their skills to creator entrepreneurs scaling multi-platform media brands. Session submissions will be voted only by the industry, ensuring panels and speakers are relevant to Podcast Movement’s intended audience. Events include tactical panels with actionable insights, networking events built for creators at every stage, and vendor showcases with hands-on highlights. A quote from Podcast Movement President Bryan Barletta: 

“This isn’t a venue change. It’s a statement. Podcasting has gone from underestimated to unavoidable, and when the right crowd gets together, the energy is real. The conversations get bigger, the ideas move faster, and the whole industry levels up. It’s serious, but it’s also a lot of fun.” 

Early stage sponsors for Podcast Movement 2026 include ADOPTER Media, ART19, ESPN, Locked On Podcast Network, Magellan AI, Red Seat Ventures, Right Side Up, and SoundStack. Further sponsorship opportunities and general ticket sales are coming soon. Keep an eye on PodcastMovement.com, wink wink. 

 

Podcast ad skipping isn’t nearly as bad as I worried by Dan Misener

Misener takes a look at what podcast audiences actually do in regards to skipping podcast ads, compared to what they say they do. As Sounds Profitable’s 2024 report Ad Nauseam found, 46% of listeners say they “always or often” skip podcast ads. 

That said, when consumers discuss ad skipping as a hypothetical, they can overstate how much they actually skip. Using episode retention histograms from an example podcast episode, one can chart how many skipped an ad. A quote from Misener: 

“For each detected ad break, we can measure the number of people present, and compare that to the number of people who likely would have been present had they not avoided the ad. Given the natural audience attrition throughout the episode, the difference between ad seconds played and potential ad seconds played is different at every point in the episode.”

While that difference is commonly referred to as “ad skipping” or “ad avoidance,” Misener pitches framing it as podcast ad retention. In an example podcast episode with 3 midroll breaks, the first two breaks have a 97% retention rate, while the final ad scored 94% retention. 

When charting out ads on a graph of percentage avoided versus duration, Bumper’s data shows a wide spectrum with a trend favoring brevity. Longer podcast ads seem to be skipped more often. While there is no magic bullet solution to ad retention, Misner stresses many podcasts have very strong ad retention. 

 

Two People On A Couch by Tom Webster

 

In a recent study, Sounds Profitable research identified a segment of 560 respondents who consume podcasts – audio or video – with others “most of the time” or “always.” For this group, podcasting is largely a visual medium. 61% spend more than half of their podcast time watching video, 38% primarily use YouTube as their primary podcast platform, and smart TVs are their third most-used primary device at 15%.

Though, when asked what they expect a podcast to be, the segment’s answers don’t necessarily match their behavior. 28% expect podcasts to be either audio or video, 15% expect primarily or exclusively video, 38% expect “usually audio but may be video,” and 19% expect audio-only. A quote from Webster. 

“Even in a segment defined by shared, screen-based consumption, the mental model of what a podcast is still tilts toward audio. Their behavior has outpaced their definition. They’re watching podcasts together on a TV, and they still think of podcasts as something you listen to. The word “co-listening” makes the same mistake. It describes what the medium used to be, not what these people are actually doing. If you’ve spent any time in audience research, you know that the gap between what people do and what they say they do is where all the interesting stuff lives.”

Webster ties this to a recent moment when he and his wife Tamsen went on Hulu to see if the new season of Paradise had started. Too early for the show they wanted, they instead stumbled across the official companion podcast. A frictionless experience delivering relevant content.

Which begs a big question: what does the audio equivalent of two-people-on-a-couch look like? As Steven Goldstein recently put it: audio is intentional. Audio podcast consumers actively seek out something specific to listen to, and choose when they listen to it. Meanwhile, the video world is largely run on recommendations. Net-new content can fall into the laps of consumers when they’re generally in the mood to watch something.  

Webster argues this segment of podcast co-consumers is valuable because they’re sharing the content they like. To spoil the end of the article: “ … if we can build that kind of frictionless, contextual, shared discovery for audio, the clay is still wet enough to shape it.”

 

The Ambies 2026

It takes more than a blizzard to keep the Ambies down. Rescheduled to Tuesday, the 2026 Ambies took place during On Air Fest in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. And, with the rescheduling, came a live stream of the event on YouTube that is now available as a video. 

The Hollywood Reporter covered the event and its winners. Tenderfoot TV and iHeartPodcasts’ Wisecrack took home Podcast of the Year. Other highlights include Kara Swisher receiving the Governors Award and the late Reggie Ossé receiving the Impact Award. Pablo Torre, host of Pablo Torre Finds Out, was named the Vanguard Podcaster of the Year. Best Ad Read and Podcast Advertiser Innovator, categories sponsored by Sounds Profitable, went to Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend and Charlie’s Place respectively

 

As for the rest of the news…