Thank you, podcasting! As the Podcast Movement NYC sessions open call came to an end last night, we count nearly 800 submissions. The first ever New York-based Podcast Movement is on track to be a blast. Don’t forget to grab your tickets now! Remember, this year has no tiers, just one general admission ticket for $199.
Next Audio’s Frugal Cannes Playbook
Next Audio co-founder and chief commercial officer Lemya Soltani detailed on LinkedIn how the MENA audio network hosted a Cannes Lions networking event without VC funding, cutting costs at every turn: splitting a boat rental with another company for over 80% in savings, catering from a local vendor found by walking around Cannes (also over 80% savings), supermarket beverages picked by Vivino ratings (over 90% savings), economy flights with complimentary lounge access via an Emirates Skywards credit card, and a last-minute Airbnb 20 minutes from the Croisette (about 70% savings). “You don’t need the biggest budget to make an impact,” Soltani wrote, “but a clear objective, creativity, discipline, integrity, and a willingness to roll up your sleeves.” Sounds Profitable’s Bryan Barletta made a similar case in a separate LinkedIn post, citing a $2,250 flight and $850 Airbnb to fly in podcaster Ti King on two weeks’ notice, and SP’s own beachfront presence, built through an LBBonline Little Black Book partnership, for less than the company spent at The Podcast Show London.
Riches vs Niches: The Value of Community in Podcasting
The YouTube upload of a Sounds Profitable panel from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is now live. The panel, “Riches vs Niches: The Value of Community in Podcasting and Where Smaller Shows Can Deliver Big Results,” features Mike Reznick of SoundStack, Chris Peterson of Red Seat Ventures, Billy Hartman of ART19, and Elsie Kaplan of ADOPTER Media. The group examines why smaller, niche-owned podcasts can outperform broad-reach shows on the metrics that matter to advertisers: audience engagement, premium ad rates, and subscription revenue. The 37-minute discussion argues that category ownership is becoming the more durable business model in podcasting.
Deep Blue, Mondo Metrics Partner on Women’s Sports Index by Rachel Axon
Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment and Mondo Metrics launched the Women’s Sports Index, a real-time platform that benchmarks and evaluates media value across women’s sports using social data from TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. Using Mondo’s MondoTrends AI, the index can measure a team or athlete’s post performance against its own history, its league peers, or women’s sports as a whole, addressing a gap left by traditional metrics like Nielsen ratings and Comscore that don’t capture social engagement. “For so long we’ve really had to rely on, I’ll say duct taping together a series of third-party vendor tools,” said Deep Blue founder and CEO Laura Correnti, adding the goal was “a central source of truth that was moving at the speed of the market.” Mondo Metrics founder and CEO Nick Cicero said nine new women’s sports leagues have launched since 2020, mostly without major TV deals, forcing them to “build a fan base from the ground up” on social rather than relying on a broadcast schedule. The index is live for current Deep Blue and Mondo clients, with League One Vollyball already using early data to help its athletes build their personal brands.
Nielsen Trends Show PM Drive Listening Leads AM In Top 10 Markets
Nielsen’s May 2026 survey found PM drive (3-7 p.m.) accounted for 56.8% of the week’s unique adult 18+ radio audience across the top 10 U.S. markets, compared to 43.2% for AM drive (6-10 a.m.), up slightly from a 56.3%-43.7% split in May 2025, Inside Audio Marketing reports. Chicago (58.9%) and New York (58.0%) posted the widest PM leads, with afternoon share rising year over year in five of the ten markets. A companion Crowd React Media survey of more than 1,000 U.S. adults found the share citing afternoon as their primary listening period rose from 28% to 34% over the past two years, while morning fell from 52% to 40%. The reversal challenges long-standing assumptions about morning drive’s primacy in radio ad planning and daypart strategy.
…as for the rest of the news:
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True Native Media is hosting an Office Hours webinar on July 15 at noon Central, open for registration now.
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JoneKiri has struck a strategic partnership to handle ad sales and brand partnerships across We Speak in Bitcoin’s network, starting with dedicated representation for The Mark Moss Show.
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Podimo is shifting its creator monetization model from stream-based rewards to revenue share for exclusive or ad-free content, effective August 1.
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Podscribe added automated social engagement tracking for Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube tied to podcast sponsorship campaigns, unifying social and podcast attribution in one dashboard.
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AudioUK’s APAs entry period opens July 1, with early-bird pricing through August 30, a September 16 final deadline, and winners announced November 26 at the BFI in London.
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Radiocentre CEO Matt Payton reports on audio’s Cannes Lions comeback, citing an Effie x System1 study of 1,262 campaigns that found audio-inclusive ads lifted profit by 75% and trust by 81%.
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ekoz.ai’s new tool lets podcasters generate voice-cloned host-read ads with per-episode approval, a route to CPMs 3-4x higher than prerecorded programmatic spots.
