Before we get into the news, a quick heads-up for an event next week: SiriusXM Media, Barometer, Signal Hill Insights, and Sounds Profitable are banding together for the live one-hour webinar From Insights to Action: Turning Podcast Trends Into Campaign Strategy at 2:00 p.m. EST, Thursday, February 19th. Registration is free and live now.
American Scripted TV Is Consolidating Around Safer Bets
Ampere Analysis data finds scripted TV commissions increased in 2025, up 3% year over year, with first-run scripted show orders up 7% as well. Two years of growth for scripted TV since the marked decrease in 2022 and writer’s strike-related pivots to unscripted content in 2023. Streaming Wars argues this steady growth back towards “peak TV” numbers pre-2022 is a vote of confidence in constraint. Buyers with a specific audience in mind, predicting performance windows, or anchoring projects around known IP are commissioning new scripted shows in North America. Which leaves original scripted concepts without IP, format familiarity, or the ability to argue scheduling value are fundamentally at a disadvantage. Something the scripted world of podcasting can relate to. While podcasting never necessarily had a glut of over-spending on audio fiction, money tends to flow into “for sure” bets similar to scripted TV: proven IP and new IP built around celebrity voice-actors (who are intended to play the role in a TV adaptation) remain the two most popular methods for getting a big scripted production off the ground. Which brings up a clear connection you’ve heard me make many times: audio fiction has the potential to be the manga to scripted TV’s anime. A symbiotic relationship between the two mediums where one acts as an IP-engine for the other, creating a cycle of new shows for both.
Podcast advertising benchmarks: Q4 2025
Magellan AI is back with another quarterly benchmark, this time looking at the end of last year. Nine of the top ten spenders in Q4 were also top spenders in Q3, keeping spend up during the holiday season. 1,482 brands advertised on podcasts for the first time during Q4. One bit of data that stands out is ad load continuing to grow, rising from 8.33% in Q3 to 8.82% in Q4. While Magellan AI’s definition of ad load includes ads for other podcasts (e.g. another show on the same network), the fact remains podcast ad load continues to creep upwards. One of podcasting’s selling points has always been our ability to make ads matter and connect with audiences, but audiences’ patience and love for shows is not infinite, nor something the business of podcasting can ignore.
Countries Across Europe Take Action to Ban Social Media for Minors by Ece Yildirim
According to Gizmodo’s reporting, at least 15 governments in the EU are planning social media bans for minors inspired by a December ban in Australia that kicked any kid under 16 off social media. A side effect of trying to keep kids from rewiring their brains with infinite dopamine-dispensing apps and networks is how they will be banned. Some companies comply on a per-country basis, some pre-empt EU legislation by enacting their own, similarly to Discord’s intention to globally treat all accounts as teenagers. That is, unless their in-house system can determine the user is an adult, or if the user submits their face for a scan. Given podcasting’s roots as an open RSS distributed medium, social media restrictions don’t necessarily impact podcasts directly. That said, it could have an impact on the platforms podcasts most often use to build audiences in the first place.
As for the rest of the news…
- Red Seat Ventures has announced the acquisition of premium podcast feed platform Supercast, which is slated to continue operating autonomously under founder Jason Sew Hoy.
- Journalist and professor Lynne d Johnson reflects on an IABALM panel last week and how the data shared supports a core truth podcasting knows in its bones: audio works.
- Amplitude Media Partners celebrated their second anniversary yesterday (happy belated birthday!)
- MarketWatch covers Spotify’s stock rallying as the company announces 38 million new users.
- ESPN’s 30 for 30 Podcasts is kicking off season 16 with Murder at the U, a rare true crime direction for the series as the victim at the heart of it all is NFL prospect Bryan Pata.
- The Deep End With Lecrae has announced Libsyn is the show’s new exclusive host and monetization partner.
