Sounds Profitable

Another new partner joins Sounds Profitable: welcome CacheFly ! 🎉 CacheFly is a content delivery network built for traffic that can’t afford to fail, helping media companies deliver content quickly, reliably and at scale. For podcasting, that infrastructure matters. Every stream, download and ad ultimately depends on content getting where it needs to go, when it needs to get there. CacheFly brings deep expertise in CDN technology, media delivery and the infrastructure powering audio at scale. We’re excited to bring their perspective into the Sounds Profitable partner community and continue expanding the range of companies and expertise represented across the business of podcasting. Welcome to Sounds Profitable, CacheFly 🥳

On September 10, Sounds Profitable’s Bryan Barletta is joining Jim Ballas, President of Measurement at Magellan AI, to unpack the Q2 2026 Podcast Measurement Benchmarks. They’ll go beyond a single measurement methodology to compare what attribution data tells us about listener behavior with what audience research tells us directly from listeners. The goal: give advertisers a more complete picture of podcast campaign performance—and better questions to ask their measurement partners heading into the biggest advertising quarter of the year. September 10 | 2 PM ET  Register at the link in the comments below 👇

🎉New Speaker!🎉 Noel Miller is headed to the Sounds Profitable Business Summit to share “You Need To Invest In Failure” with TMG Studios . 200 media buyers are registered to attend!

🎉New Speakers!🎉 Krystina Rubino  and Greg Glenday are headed to the Sounds Profitable Business Summit to share “The Skip Button Debate: An Advertiser-Publisher Conversation” with Right Side Up  / Acast   200 media buyers are already registered to attend!

YouTube has extraordinary reach. But reach and advertising experience aren’t the same thing. 61% of YouTube users say the platform shows them too many ads. Among YouTube-first users, 49% actively disagree that YouTube’s ads are “non-disruptive.” And among the ten platforms we measured for advertising experience, the biggest podcast platform came in last. That’s an important tension for the podcast industry. YouTube has become an increasingly important part of podcast consumption, discovery and advertising. But more inventory doesn’t automatically create a better advertising environment. As podcasting expands further into video, protecting the listener experience, and the value of the attention advertisers are buying, becomes even more important. Scale gets you into the room. Experience determines what that scale is worth.

🎉New Speakers!🎉 Melissa Paris (Wright)  and Ted A'Zary  are headed to the Sounds Profitable Business Summit to share “The Format Wars Never Happened: Why Audio and Video Are Growing Together” with SiriusXM  / Publicis  200 media buyers are already registered to attend!

Great audio starts with a great voice and producing it has never been more flexible. We're excited to welcome WellSaid to the Sounds Profitable Partner Network. 🎉 WellSaid provides AI-powered, production-quality voiceover creation, management, and workflow tools that help teams produce professional audio more efficiently. As AI continues to reshape content creation, platforms like WellSaid are giving creators and brands new ways to scale production while maintaining high-quality standards. Welcome to Sounds Profitable WellSaid team, we’re happy to have you! 👏

YouTube isn’t just where people discover podcasts. It’s increasingly where they consume them. 64% of podcast listeners say they consume podcast content on YouTube often or always. That compares with 37% on Facebook, 30% on Instagram Reels and 28% on Spotify. The distinction matters. For years, we’ve talked about social platforms primarily as promotional channels for podcasts, somewhere to post clips that push audiences toward the “real” show. But if nearly two-thirds of podcast listeners regularly consume podcast content directly on YouTube, the platform isn’t just marketing the podcast. It is the podcast experience for a huge portion of the audience. That changes the conversation around distribution, programming, measurement and monetization.

What did podcast listeners actually do after hearing an ad and does that match what they say they did? That’s where podcast measurement gets interesting. On September 10, Magellan AI's Jim Ballas and our very own Bryan Barletta are bringing attribution data and audience research together for a closer look at podcast advertising performance. Using Magellan AI’s Q2 2026 Podcast Measurement Benchmarks, they’ll explore where behavioral and self-reported measurement tell the same story, where they diverge, and why advertisers should be paying attention to both. If you’re planning, buying, measuring, or reporting on podcast advertising, this is a conversation you’ll want to be part of. September 10 | 2 PM ET Register at the link in the comments below 👇

Podcasting doesn’t exist in a podcast-only ecosystem anymore. YouTube reaches 82% of U.S. adults on ad-supported platforms each month. Facebook reaches 80%. Instagram reaches 62%. TikTok reaches 50%. For comparison? Ad-supported video podcasts reach 37%. Ad-supported audio podcasts reach 36%. That doesn’t diminish podcasting’s value. It shows us where the top of the funnel increasingly lives. Social platforms have become a critical part of the infrastructure connecting audiences to podcasts, whether someone ultimately watches, listens, follows, subscribes or comes back somewhere else. For creators, publishers and marketers, the takeaway is pretty straightforward: podcast discovery strategy and social strategy can’t really be separate strategies anymore.