1UpMedia founder Guang Jin Yeo discusses best practices for growing podcasting globally from the perspective of Asia’s content. For example, video’s growth is undeniable, but it doesn’t necessarily mean every show must be filmed. For instance, Darknet Diaries easily cracks five figure view counts with mostly static-frame video podcast episodes. 1UpMedia has adapted several old episodes of BBC World Services’ Witness History with static illustrations given movement in post-processing. Dubbing episodes, manually or with AI, can be useful, but demand should be confirmed before investing in it. Generative AI can be used to scale a show fast, but Yeo cautions a golden rule of full disclosure. YouGov data shows audiences in Asian markets like Indonesia and India are open to generative AI being used in informative content, but it must be disclosed. Otherwise, situations like the recent Hank Green controversy happen, when the science educator revealed he uses ChatGPT for research in making his videos. This angered his audience enough to stop several projects while he waits for the heat to die down. As Yeo frames the rule, “the audience shouldn’t be able to tell, but they must always be told.”
82% of agencies now buy audio programmatically, up from 41% in 2022, according to a survey by Advertiser Perceptions and Cumulus Media/Westwood One. Amazon DSP added podcast inventory from SiriusXM, Spotify, Acast and iHeart in June and July. Oxford Road director of programmatic James Vakula says advertisers increasingly run a 70/30 mix of host-read and programmatic ads. The tradeoff is frequency. Podscribe’s Cam Weber notes that listeners generally hear one ad per episode, “but over the course of a campaign in an impression-based buy, a listener could hear more than 15 ads.” Podscribe’s latest benchmark report, covered by Inside Audio Marketing, puts the average podcast ad load at 10.3% in Q2 2026, the second straight quarterly decline, and finds shows with heavy ad loads can generate nearly half the conversion rate of lighter ones. Podscribe head of partnerships Matt Drengler says “buys are happening on more long tail shows, smaller shows that typically have lower ad load,” while programmatic’s share of tracked impressions edged down to 14.5% from 15%.
Patreon removes “per-creation” memberships: goes monthly only
Podnews reports that Patreon is removing its legacy per-creation membership, moving creators who charge supporters for each release onto monthly billing. An analysis from GrowthMasteryHub notes creators face a November 1, 2026 deadline, and that Patreon’s migration process can convert a per-creation pledge into a monthly price based on recent paid-post history. This change will likely have an outsized impact on forms of podcasting that aren’t always-on, such as audio fiction and seasonal investigative journalism series.
…as for the rest of the news:
- Fairing and Podscribe have partnered to bring show-level attribution to podcast campaigns, automatically adding active Podscribe campaigns as answer options in Fairing’s post-purchase surveys.
- Apple Podcasts Connect quietly reprocessed listening data after finding a discrepancy, with average consumption on one of Podnews’ July episodes revised from 176% to 85% and play counts falling on affected episodes.
- Global has launched Radio Plus, a £9.99-a-month subscription for ad-free listening across its UK music brands, alongside a Podcast Plus offering.
- On PodBiz, Norma Jean Belenky talks with NumberEight’s Emma Raz about building privacy-first podcast audience data that moves beyond surveys and household IP matching.
- Brian Morrissey argues that publishers face “the final commoditization” as AI interfaces strip their content into raw material, pointing to events and communities as products that are harder to commoditize.
- On Podcast Advertising Playbook, Heather Osgood sits down with PodBiz’s Norma Jean Belenky live from Podcast Movement to talk through the challenges facing the industry and why podcasting remains a place to build an audience and a business from the ground up.
- Edison Research’s Share of Ear data shows mobile devices have overtaken built-in AM/FM radio as the top in-car listening device among 13-34 year olds for the first time, though Edison notes some of that mobile listening is to radio station streams.
