Before we get into the news, a quick heads-up for an event next week: SiriusXM Media, Barometer, Signal Hill Insights, and Sounds Profitable are banding together for the live one-hour webinar From Insights to Action: Turning Podcast Trends Into Campaign Strategy at 2:00 p.m. EST, Thursday, February 19th. Registration is free and live now.
The Politics of What We Listen To by Tom Webster
Semi-regularly, Tom Webster is quizzed about the political makeup of podcast listenership. These are usually motivated by popular theories/impulses (e.g. podcasts are largely for liberals, or conservative podcasts rule the roost now). Looking at Podcast Landscape 2025 data, the reality is when one looks at the self-prescribed political identity of respondents who’ve listened to a show in the past 30 days, American podcast listening is almost perfectly divided into thirds. 32% liberal, 30% conservative, 33% moderate. A quote from the article:
“If that surprises you, it probably shouldn’t, given what we know about the growing breadth and diversity of the podcast audience. But it does tend to surprise people, because we’ve all been marinating in narratives about filter bubbles and partisan media silos for so long that it feels wrong for any media channel to be this evenly distributed. And yet, here we are.”
While the audience as a monolith is evenly divided, individual genres have their biases. TV & Film is the most liberal-leaning with a 19 point gap between them and conservative audience share. On the opposite end, conservatives outpace liberals about 7 points in Business. Political Talk is almost as evenly-split as the overall audience, clocking 34% liberal, 26% conservative, and 29% moderate. Certain genres will reach certain audiences by dint of them specifically appealing to that group. No one genre has influenced its audience to skew that direction. Rather, those genres produced engaging content that appeals to specific audiences, and those audiences have found that content.
Nieman Lab takes a look at Q4 2025 performance metrics for public radio stations based on web traffic. Minnesota Public Radio topped off the list as the #1 for November and December, with Oregon Public Broadcasting taking the top spot in October. It’s worth noting the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti happened in early January, not impacting the numbers for MPR. The October-December boost in MPR traffic stems from the longer story of ICE presence in Minneapolis and nearby Chicago during Q4 of last year drawing press attention to the area. MPR’s performance shows what happens when public media is able to exist and do the work it was designed for from the start. Local journalism produced locally gets results.
In a recent conversation with Thomas de Napoli, VP Head of Sales & Underwriting APM and MPR, I asked about the realities of bringing local journalism like this to market, and how advertisers responded. He recounted a decision to launch nightly call-in shows on MPR to discuss issues happening on the ground in Minneapolis.
“We had advertisers signing up within less than 12 hours of seeing the package for the first time. That’s what happens when the advertiser already has faith in the audience you’re delivering, the product you’re bringing them, the messaging that you create, the environment that they’re going to be in, and they believe in your mission. When it’s all really working, it looks like that. It looks like: on a Monday morning the newsroom calls you, talks about what they’re gonna do that night, and by five in the afternoon you have ads being placed.”
Earnings Calls, Reports, and Data, Oh My!
It’s time for Q4 reports to trickle in, and I’ve got several for you today. First up, Rain News covers SiriusXM Media’s Q4 report. While over the entire year SiriusXM lost 301k self-paying (e.g. not bundled into other purchases) subscribers, Q4 showed 110k new self-pay users and churn dropped from 16% to 15% year-over-year.
Spotify’s Q4 2025 earnings are posted, showing 290 million Premium subscribers (a 10% year-over-year) increase. Podnews has a good breakdown of Spotify’s podcasting-specific details as well. Here’s a quote:
“Ad sales over all of Spotify dropped in 2025 by a total of $21.5mn (-1%); but podcast ad sales dropped in the year by almost $99mn (“due to optimization of podcast inventory”). However, the costs to Spotify of making podcasts also decreased in 2025, helping ad-supported gross margin improve.”
Finally, Acast’s report shows a strong Q4. Looking at the full year, Acast’s net sales growth hit 29% year-over-year. Growth they attribute specifically to Acast’s North American regional expansion, which experienced net sales growth of 60%.
Countries Across Europe Take Action to Ban Social Media for Minors by Ece Yildirim
According to Gizmodo’s reporting, at least 15 governments in the EU are planning social media bans for minors inspired by a December ban in Australia that kicked any kid under 16 off social media. A side effect of trying to keep kids from rewiring their brains with infinite dopamine-dispensing apps and networks is how they will be banned.
Some companies comply on a per-country basis, some pre-empt EU legislation by enacting their own, similarly to Discord’s intention to globally treat all accounts as teenagers. That is, unless their in-house system can determine the user is an adult, or if the user submits their face for a scan.
Given podcasting’s roots as an open RSS-distributed medium, social media restrictions don’t necessarily impact podcasts directly. Nor should they necessarily impact apps used to consume podcasts (outside existing age restrictions on platforms like YouTube or Spotify). That said, it could have an impact on the platforms podcasts most often use to build audiences in the first place.
As for the rest of the news…
- Red Seat Ventures has announced the acquisition of premium podcast feed platform Supercast, which is slated to continue operating autonomously under founder Jason Sew Hoy.
- Dwellspring, the company launched from the podcast 12 Hour Sound Machines, has debuted an interactive audio engine in their mobile app that allows users to build their own bespoke soundscapes for relaxation.
- Magellan AI has published their Q4 podcast advertising benchmarks, showing podcast ad spend is up 32% year-over-year.
- Jomboy Media, an independent digital sports media company backed by the MLB, has announced they have signed an annual partnership with Listener.com to act as an AI intel layer over their podcast network and media operations.
- NPR covers the launch of On the Docket, a project from the University of Minnesota (in partnership with Spooler and Idib Group) that takes audio from landmark Supreme Court cases and adds generative AI animations of the justices delivering their opinions.
- The 69th Annual New York Emmys are currently accepting entries, and the official release specifically notes video podcasts are eligible for their Talk Program categories.
