The Golden Globes’ First ‘Best Podcast’ Award
Yesterday, Golden Globes host Nikki Glaser introduced the first ever podcasting category nominations with a pithy parody of the infamous Nicole Kidman AMC promo. Though I’d argue our industry being big enough to get poked fun at by both SNL and the Globes is a sign of podcasting’s undeniable success and size, the true win is being enshrined with a best-of award at a major annual event. The Ringer’s Good Hang with Amy Poehler took home the first Best Podcast award, originally nominated alongside Call Her Daddy, Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, The Mel Robbins Podcast, SmartLess and Up First.
Spotify shares the trends it anticipates will shape 2026 by Marisa Jones
Spotify Global Head of Advertising Sales and Partnerships Brian Berner, in an interview with EMARKETER, anticipates this year podcasts will “cement their status as a primetime media format.” A move that will thus create a surge of demand for automated and programmatic buying on podcasts, allowing advertisers to work at the scale and campaign optimization they expect. With the strong focus on building out Spotify into a multimedia platform, there has been a fair amount of messaging around “creators” in general, with less focus on “podcasters.” This acknowledgement that podcasting specifically is a force to be reckoned with is a welcome sign. Especially when paired with stories of Spotify’s recent Partner Program updates allowing more podcasters to partake of monetization that, in some cases, surpasses YouTube’s monetization program.
Video in the iHeartRadio app will use the power of open RSS by James Cridland
Podnews reports the iHeartRadio “creator first” update allowing video podcast distribution into the iHeartRadio app is powered by open RSS. Specifically, using Podcasting 2.0’s alternateEnclosure feature. This means podcasters can push both the audio and video version of their show on the same RSS feed and iHeartRadio honors them both while respecting the different versions. The linked piece above features a Q&A with iHeartRadio in which iHeart re-affirms their support of open RSS for video distribution and will not require logging into any iHeart portal. MP4, a common video file format, is the only one currently accepted for the initial launch but iHeart is open to supporting other formats as popularity grows.
As for the rest of the news…
- Acast has published a new case study looking at a brand awareness campaign for AT&T and Oracle Red Bull Racing centered around the U.S. Grand Prix. During the live event, P1 with Matt & Tommy hosts hosted a Q&A with Scott Speed with simulcast of both audio and video versions.
- Goalhanger has grown their leadership team, welcoming on Andy Hodgson as CFO, Chloe Straw as Director of Operations, and Emily Kent Smith as Editorial Director.
- Audacy has named Podscribe their preferred measurement partner for 2026.
- PRX and AudioUK have announced programming for their 2025 Podcast Creator Summit taking place February 6th in London.
- Grab your stethoscopes, HBO Max and PRX have partnered to produce an official companion podcast for medical drama The Pitt dubbed The Pitt Podcast.
