Here’s what else a $8M, 30-second Super Bowl budget can purchase in 2026 by Kimeko McCoy
It’s that time of year where outlets take a look at the sheer amount of advertising dollars budgeted for The Big Game. For some podcasting context, we reached out to VSiN rep and Mission Media AI founder David Krulewich. VSiN has recently announced 60 hours of Super Bowl LX betting coverage, which includes podcasts for their network. Krulewich says what many marketers overlook re: the Super Bowl is real engagement happening in the days and hours leading up to the actual game. Fans are diving into sports talk podcasts, looking for betting insights, game strategy, even tips for planning watch parties. A quote from Krulewich: “Instead of paying a premium for one 30-second TV spot, brands can show up repeatedly in high-attention, context-rich environments at a fraction of the cost, driving sustained impact rather than a single flash of awareness.”
Why smarter media allocation — not bigger budgets — is driving better reach by Susan Leland
In an NPR-sponsored Digiday piece, Director of Audience Insights Susan Leland shares two case studies of situations where careful targeting delivered the highly-engaged audience both brands wanted to reach. Using Nielsen’s Media Impact Podcast Fusion tool, NPR tracked the efficacy of reallocating budget from a TV only plan oversaturating audiences into NPR podcast network ads. In the case of a financial services company, NPR reports the cost-per-reach dropped 37%, reaching 3.48 million new audience members purely through podcast ads.
Headgum has signed Hulu’s first video podcast licensing deal in the form of We’re Here to Help, a video podcast hosted by actor Jake Johnson and comedian-podcaster Gareth Reynolds. The deal includes partial exclusivity, with new video episodes releasing exclusively on Hulu a day before going live on the podcast’s soon-to-be-relaunched YouTube page. The WHtH back catalog also is headed to the Hulu library. A deal that shows there’s more than one way to handle video podcast licensing on streaming platforms, as this finds a middle-ground between full walled garden exclusivity and simulcasting YouTube uploads.
TechRadar covers a recently-granted patent to Sony involving generative AI “podcasts” designed to keep Playstation users engaged on a day-to-day basis. The patent envisions a feature that would pop up on a user’s console dashboard telling them their daily “podcast” is ready, in which two genAI 3D models and voice clones of characters from games the user recently played chat about data collected during the previous play session (e.g. in-game achievements unlocked, gameplay performance, relevant news articles about the franchise). As Podnews reporting says, there’s no indication this will be an actual podcast with distribution outside of a video file on that player’s local system. It’s also worth noting, for the non-gamers out there, that it’s not uncommon in the video game industry for companies to file patents for mechanics/tools they might not even use. See the infamous 1995 Namco patent for loading screen minigames, which outlasted the loading screens the mechanic was designed to improve.
Entries Now Open for The Golden Lobes 2026
It’s awards-submitting season, folks! This time the awards ceremony dedicated to comedy podcasting, The Golden Lobes, are open for submission. Those looking to submit to organizer Cheerful Earful have a £25 admission fee to pay and must submit a maximum five minute file of the best bits relevant to the category. The 2026 edition introduces new categories like best new show, best international show, behind-the-scenes hero, and beyond the feed (acknowledging podcasts that have built significant secondary content, such as newsletters or sizeable Discord communities).
As for the rest of the news…
Futuro Media Group has launched season 3 of their series La Brega: Campeones following the lives of Puerto Rican champions, presented in both English and Spanish.
Annual international rugby tournament the Six Nations Championship has kicked off a new branding deal for Crowd Network podcast For the Love of Rugby in the form of a studio rebrand. Branding for delivery service Tesco Woosh will appear on the set and video graphics throughout FTLOR’s Six Nations coverage.
Bumper co-founder Dan Misener is in a new episode of Mics to Millions, touching on everything from the value of listener loyalty over raw downloads to Tom Webster’s lessons on survivorship bias and listener surveys.
NOVA Entertainment has announced the addition of popular Australian podcast Better Than Yesterday with Osher Günsberg to their network.
DAX US SVP of Sales Jennifer Louie Oon is the guest on a new episode of Marketecture’s AdTechGod.
