Exclusive: Podcast merger signals convergence era by Kerry Flynn
Podcast Movement and Sounds Profitable are merging. Both brands will continue to exist with their original staff intact, with Bryan Barletta becoming president of Podcast Movement. With the merger comes a renewed focus on getting podcasting in front of the business world, such as bringing the roving primary Podcast Movement event to a more permanent home in advertising hub New York City starting 2026. In addition, Evolutions by Podcast Movement will partner with SXSW to continue Sounds Profitable’s work building podcasting’s presence at the festival. Sounds Profitable will also continue to bring podcasting to events like Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, The Podcast Show London, and POSSIBLE. In addition to Flynn’s reporting, because I can’t help myself, I’ll toss in an additional detail: an immediate result of this merger is Podcast Movement 2025 has been upgraded. Every presentation and panel in Dallas will record both audio and video and those recordings will be posted online for free after the event.
Dentsu bets on podcasting as India’s audio market matures by Vinita Bhatia
The global holding company is getting into the podcasting game in India. As Bhatia’s reporting highlights, India had the third-largest podcast market in the world (behind China and the U.S.) as of 2019, and that market hasn’t stopped growing. Monetization efforts by platforms like Pocket FM and Khabri are helping to flesh out the country’s premium subscription and micropayment systems. It’s one thing when a podcast company diversifies to new markets, it’s another entirely when a holding company decides to build a new network from scratch. Business ventures like this serve as a vote of confidence both in the burgeoning podcast industry in India, as well as the power of branded audio itself.
A Billboard article reporting on the numbers for last week’s episode of New Heights, which featured Taylor Swift casually dropping the name and album art for her upcoming 12th studio album. The YouTube version of the episode clocked 9 million views in 12 hours, while Spotify reports a 2,500% increase in average streams and a female listeners spiking 618%. Podnews editor James Cridland this moment marks a missed opportunity for podcasting, and I concur. For better or worse, our industry does not have a habit of major platforms sharing public-facing engagement stats. Which means whenever a Swiftie-sized moment comes along podcasting is left out in the cold while video platforms get the lion’s share of coverage by journalists, because those are the platforms they can go get hard numbers from without sending an email.
As for the rest of the news…
- Podnews reports The LinkedIn Podcast Network, originally launched in 2022 and under strategic partnership with iHeartMedia as of last year, is to shut down. Two of the network’s largest podcasts, Negotiate Anything and The Anxious Achiever have transitioned to YAP Media.
- With the launch of the Frequency Premium Publisher Network, the company has also rebranded from Frequency Ads to Frequency.media, reflecting the company’s wider focus of tech, media, and monetization.
- The Podglomerate has a new list of 18 podcasts-about-podcasts you should check out (full disclosure: we make an appearance in the list, thank you Joni).
- Ausha has dropped a new free tool called Ausha Charts, which tracks a podcast’s rankings on Apple and Spotify regardless of where the show is hosted.
- The Verge has a feature piece on former Polygon editor Chris Plante, who has moved into an independent career producing Post Games, a podcast about gaming and gaming fandom.
