Times Square, New York City, USA
Light version this week since we're at Podcast Movement 2026!
NEWS
💰 New York City becomes the capital of podcasting
Ira Glass of This American Life was one of the figures who kicked off the Sounds Profitable Business Summit this week at Terminal 5 in New York City. The legendary host spoke to the audience of podcast business professionals about how podcasts go beyond what content creators publish, highlighting the connection they generate and how that makes advertising more effective.
Meanwhile, IAB’s CEO David Cohen highlighted relationships in podcasting
“Podcasting has always had another advantage that is harder to quantify and extremely hard to replicate, and that is relationships”
The Spotify skip button also came up. Acast CEO Greg Glenday mentioned that several creators pulled their podcasts from Spotify in protest of that test.
After the Business Summit, Podcast Movement 2026 kicks off this Thursday the 17th. Two days of talks, presentations and networking. During the event they'll present The Podcast Landscape 2026 report, one of the most anticipated each year, plus a talk on WTF is a podcast in 2026.
This week's edition of Qué Está Pasando en el Podcasting will be recorded at Podcast Movement and will be right after they present the Podcast Landscape this Thursday, so to learn more, follow us now.
🙌🏼 The audience is willing to pay to not listen to ads
Also at the Sounds Profitable Business Summit, the folks from Strategic Solutions Research and Point to Point Marketing presented the findings of The Podcast Study 2026 report. They wanted to examine podcast consumption across the United States by asking 1,205 consumers. They found that:
82% say the podcast host is mostly or the only reason why they listen to their favorite podcast
When the host is the one delivering the ad, 57% say they're more likely to remember the brand
45% say they would likely pay for a type of subscription that removes all advertising from an episode except the host-read ads, and would pay $4 to $5 a month
64% of those who don't subscribe to a podcast's email list say they would, or that it depends on the audience. Email is still the most underused communication channel.
Why it matters: reports keep coming out that show us not only the strong connection podcasters build with their audience, but also how willing the audience is to support their favorite podcasters.
🤖AI voices once again beat human voices when it comes to advertising
An advertising campaign between IP Vanish, a VPN company, and the Blue Wire network used AI replicas of its talent's voices as part of a study. The result was that the ads with AI voices outperformed by 26% the ones read by humans. The campaign used the same ad in three different formats: the traditional one read by a human, one with an outside talent, and the other with an AI voice. The results also showed that there's only a 9% difference between the AI replicas and the ones read by humans. The replica voices were approved by the creators.
🇲🇽 Spotify Partner Program arrives in Mexico
Mexican podcast creators will now be able to monetize their content through Premium audiences and sponsorships. The Spotify Partner Program aims to offer creators flexibility, removing the need for dynamic ads.
Why it matters: every new monetization opportunity that opens up in LATAM is important.
AROUND THE INDUSTRY
Qué Está Pasando en el Podcasting is at Podcast Movement so if you're around, let me know!
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TIPS, TRICKS AND STRATEGIES
🧵 New features for podcasters on Threads
This week the social network announced a series of new features aimed at podcasters. You can now share transcripts, direct links in posts, save episodes and even see the traffic that reaches your podcast thanks to Threads.
🍎 Apple Podcasts redesigned for the new iOS
This week Apple launched iOS27, tvOS27 and macOS27. All three updates give Apple Podcasts a much-needed redesign. With the new version of tvOS, users can now enjoy video podcasts and consume premium subscriptions from their TV. Podcast pages were also redesigned. Both macOS and iOS now include transcripts, chapters and content links in video podcasts.
