Last week Sounds Profitable Partner Tom Webster debuted data from The Podcast Atlas at Vidcon. The new report, built from a survey of over 5,000 U.S. consumers, identifies five distinct territories that make up today’s creator ecosystem. A key finding from the Podcast Atlas is audiences’ willingness to follow creators. 73% of podcast listeners would follow a creator from audio to video formats, and 71% would follow from long-form episodes to short-form clips, evidence that audience loyalty is tied to creators rather than containers. Conducted with JAR Podcast Solutions, the study maps the podcast ecosystem into five territories: audio (the trust engine with the highest credibility ratings), video (the engagement and post-ad action driver), short-form clips (the primary discovery mechanism), newsletters (owned and algorithm-independent relationships), and social platforms (reach and daily engagement). The full report will debut in a free webinar on Wednesday, July 1, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern.
Amazon expands media footprint with iHeart sales deal and new TV outcome tool
iHeartMedia has expanded its advertising partnership with Amazon Ads, becoming a reseller of inventory across Amazon Music, Prime Video, Twitch, Fire TV, and Alexa, building on an existing three-year arrangement where iHeart had sold Prime Video streaming ad inventory. The deal, detailed in a joint press release, gives iHeart’s 1,000-plus sellers access to Amazon’s first-party shopping and streaming data.
Ten companies capture ~60% of US podcast ad revenue, and there’s a vibrant long tail under them.
Owl & Co. founder Hernan Lopez shares findings from the second annual Global Podcast Economy Report, built on more than 300,000 data points across 1,600-plus publishers and input from more than 100 operators and experts worldwide. Ten companies account for roughly 60% of U.S. podcast advertising revenue, with a substantial long tail of smaller players making up the remaining 40%. The report also tracks more than $2 billion in consumer revenue flowing through Patreon, publisher-direct channels, and platform premium services, and covers valuation multiples by company archetype, direct versus programmatic advertising mixes, and ancillary revenue lines that rarely appear in pitch decks. Reminder that Sounds Profitable partners qualify for a discount on Owl & Co. research, hit reply to learn more!
DoubleVerify Launches AI Engine That Can Recommend Campaign Changes
DoubleVerify has launched DV Neura, an AI engine designed to unify media verification, content classification, and campaign optimization across its DV Media AdVantage Platform. The system combines large language models, machine learning, and deterministic rules to classify content across audio, text, images, and video, and has monitored or blocked more than 500 million ad impressions on AI-generated low-quality sites since the start of 2026. The engine has planned future integrations with AI assistants like Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot.
ORBIT: June’s Top 15 Performing Entertainment Podcasts
Oxford Road’s ORBIT tool has released its June 2026 ranking of the top 15 performing Entertainment & Media podcasts. The Popcast with Knox and Jamie claims the #1 spot, followed by Back to the Barre (#2) and The Weekly with Jon Stewart (#3). While the Entertainment & Media category sits in the bottom third of all genres overall, the data reveals breakout titles built around specific, loyal communities. Oxford Road recommends show-level selective buying over genre-level approaches for advertisers operating in the space.
…as for the rest of the news:
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On a special edition of Oxford Road’s The Media Roundtable, Amplifi Media founder Steve Goldstein argues downloads inflate podcast audience counts by as much as 50% and that a shift to plays and streams as the industry standard metric could unlock $1 to $2 billion in additional ad spend.
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beehiiv has partnered with Spotify Open Access to let newsletter subscribers unlock Spotify podcast content directly through their beehiiv subscription, streamlining the paywall handoff between the two platforms.
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PodRoll shipped seven new features built from partner feedback, with co-founder Ken Beyer sharing graphics breaking down the new tools.
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Georgie Holt’s 10 Cannes takeaways put creator investors as the next big industry story, with platforms that support creator longevity beyond reach and monetization winning out, and creators increasingly partnering with legacy media on their own terms.
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The New York Times and American Public Media are launching The Wirecutter Show, a weekly podcast and radio program to be distributed to 1,000 public radio stations starting next month.
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Planet Money author Alex Mayyasi launched Gastronomics in an exclusive partnership with Libsyn, a food economics podcast exploring the forces shaping menus, dining trends, and consumer behavior.
