Podcasting’s Creator Gap, Spotify Wrapped for Advertisers, & More

The Gap In Podcasting That Should Concern Us by Tom Webster

This week Sounds Profitable published The Creators 2025, a follow-up to a 2022 study looking at the people behind the microphones (and now cameras) of podcasting. Conducted by Signal Hill Insights, the study is built from an online study of 5,034 Americans aged 18+.

Key takeaways include one in six people (who have consumed a podcast) have tried creating one themselves. Of the creators surveyed, 71% incorporate video into their workflow.

On that note of creation, though, Tom Webster notes a concerning gap. A quote from the article:

“Among podcast consumers, 15% of men are currently active podcast creators. For women, that number is 8%. Nearly half as many women as men.

Now, before we go any further, let me tell you what this data does not show. It doesn’t show that women are leaving podcasting at higher rates than men. In fact, the opposite is true. Among people who have ever created a podcast, women have a retention rate of 69%, compared to 67% for men. Once women start, they’re more likely to stick with it. The problem isn’t that women are abandoning the medium. The problem is they’re not starting in the first place.”

It would be easy to shift the blame of women not getting into podcast creation on the “video first” narrative of recent years. Webster proposes video is not the cause, but an accelerant of an existing issue. Who is getting to speak at conferences? Who’s being profiled at trade publications? Who’s being spotlit as examples of doing podcasting “right”? There are successful women in podcasting, no doubt, but how well-established is the road from audience member to hobbyist creator?

Which brings us back to video. In the audio-first world of podcasting, it’s possible for someone to find the time to record even with a busy day. Having a perfectly staged background, makeup, lighting, hair, and ability to perform for the camera without interruption while shooting the video version of that same podcast puts a lot more strain on beginners. And that’s not even addressing the disproportionate amount of expectations placed on a woman getting in front of a camera versus men.

As for what to do, Webster says it’s time for podcasting to be intentional about representation. Something Podcast Movement will be putting into practice with diversity and inclusion in panels/talks going forward.

“This isn’t about charity or checking boxes. It’s about showing potential creators that people like them have built something meaningful here. I can assure you that Sounds Profitable is going to walk the walk there with our first big Podcast Movement event, Evolutions at SXSW.”

In addition, the industry needs more nuance in how video is discussed. Audio-first podcasting deserves its flowers, conversations about how to do podcasting “right” need to acknowledge the “right” is incredibly context-dependent. As Webster says in his conclusion: podcasting misses something valuable when voices opt out of podcasting before they ever truly opt in.

Why Blue Wire Podcasts shifted from influencers to athletes by Alyssa Meyers

As the company has grown, Blue Wire Podcasts has transitioned from podcasts hosted by influencers towards putting professional athletes in the recording booth. Cam Newton, Dwight Howard, Michael Irvin, and D’Angelo Russell all have been signed to Blue Wire with their own shows.

Founder Kevin Jones positions it as the best of both worlds: athletes (especially the seasoned retired football players Blue Wire has focused) have valuable media training, and podcast hosts are easier to book than TV spots. A quote from Jones:

“It’s a way to get an athlete endorsement without having to spend an arm and a leg, and [brands] get to support [the athlete’s] growing media channels.”

And, of course, established athletes come with their own built-in fanbases, such as Cam Newton’s 1.7 million YouTube subscribers independent of his flagship Blue Wire podcast.

Chartable Has Shut Down

We’ve known it was coming for quite some time, but this week the public version of Chartable formally shuttered. As Bumper CTO Stephen Hallgren notes on LinkedIn, podcasts using Chartable prefixes will have stopped working as well until said prefixes are updated. While I did talk about this in the far-off land of three months ago, I do wanna highlight Bumper’s article looking at Chartable replacement options as they currently exist. While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, one can piecemeal together multiple services to get something approaching what Chartable offered.

Spotify Wrapped is for advertisers, too by Jennimai Nguyen

In addition to users rushing to Bluesky and Discord to share their “listening age” from Spotify Wrapped 2025, advertisers are getting their year-end numbers too. Though these are a bit more actionable than finding out you’re in the .01% of fans for TWRP. For the first time in four years of Spotify releasing some form of year-end advertising metrics, now individual advertisers using Spotify Ads Manager can log into their account and find their own Wrapped for the platform. A quote from Spotify global head of advertising, business marketing Bridget Evans:

“We’re providing these insights at scale for any brainstorm, and to really set up 2026 campaigns with a bit more insight into what audiences are thinking about, or the moods or the moments that they’re streaming.”

In addition, Spotify has some overall details about listenership to share in their year-end data, such as U.S. Spotify users being 67% more likely to stream in-car . Podcast listening has been educational for many, with science podcast consumption up 32% year over year, and both business and tech genres up 27% y-o-y.

As for the rest of the news…

Tink Media, continuing a year-end tradition started years ago by the Bello Collective, has published this year’s Audio Delicacies, a collection of around 100 podcast recommendations from many folks around the industry (including Tom Webster, and yours truly).