Before I get into the top story, we have a quick bit of housekeeping: today’s issue is co-written by the newest member of the Download crew Emily Ely! She provided our second and third top story, as well as four of today’s Quick Hits. With that, on to the news.
Podcast ad skipping isn’t nearly as bad as I worried by Dan Misener
As Sounds Profitable’s 2024 report Ad Nauseam found, 46% of listeners say they “always or often” skip podcast ads. That said, consumers can overstate actual behavior when discussing hypotheticals. Misener uses episode retention histograms to chart out episode retention for an example podcast episode. In said example, the 3 midroll breaks show dips in audience retention, but not by much. The first two have a 97% retention rate, while the final ad scored 94%. While there is no magic bullet solution to ad retention, Misener stresses many podcasts have very strong ad retention. A metric that podcasts would benefit from sharing with their ad partners.
Cannes Lions Expands Creator Program, Partners with Adobe, Moves to Beachfront Location
Cannes Lions is moving its creator program to the beach! The festival’s LIONS Creators space is leaving its tucked-away rooftop home for a beachfront location at Palais Des Festivals. With Adobe joining as a partner, the new event space will include on-site access to a stage, content studios, and an editing suite with live demos of Adobe tools.
Podcast Ad Market Resets After Q4 Surge, But Core Advertisers Hold Strong
January’s podcast ad market did what January always does… cool off after the holidays. Magellan AI has published the January 2026 edition of their top podcast advertisers rankings. The top 15 advertisers spent a combined $59.8 million, down 21% from December. T-Mobile sat at the top with $5.9 million, followed by BetterHelp and Quince. On the movers and shakers side of things, Intuit had a 518% increase in spending as tax season kicked off.
Can the creator economy stay afloat in a flood of AI slop? by Anthony Ha
A new episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast discusses the creator economy and business decisions made in the era of generative AI content. When considering the value of generative AI when it comes to replacing content creators/actors, Anthony Ha points to authenticity. If an advertiser or creator wants an influencer in their video they want the authenticity of that person, not a “digital simulacra” that’s vaguely similar. Though, Ha acknowledges generative AI video does have the potential to complicate newer creators monetizing their content. Without an existing audience, newer content creators have to fight uphill against the catchy, scrollable field of generated content.
As for the rest of the news…
- Transistor co-founder, Justin Jackson shares his take on Apple’s new video podcast support and what it means for the podcast ecosystem.
- Ozen.fm is bringing its global audio platform to Brazil, appointing industry veteran Priscila Falcone as Commercial Director to lead the way.
- Headliner and Hubhopper have teamed up, giving podcasters the ability to use Headliner’s AI video clipping tool without leaving Hubhopper.
- The blog Awful Announcing recently covered a dynamic ad insertion misfire on The Bill Simmons Podcast, in which two ads were deployed in such a way Simmons does an ad read for Pepsi Zero Sugar, immediately followed by a Coke ad. Something that, as Podnews notes, used to be illegal in UK radio advertising.
- The Los Angeles Times covers podcasting’s “growth problem,” citing Oxford Road’s What Brands Want 2025 report from October of last year.
- eMarketer has a new piece on the Spotify Ad Exchange, including 222% growth since last year’s launch.
