Sounds Profitable

The pace of change the podcast industry is undergoing is staggering. The implications for podcasters, hosting providers, podcast listening app developers, and advertisers and agencies are enormous. And so is the growth potential. Presented as a companion to the weekly newsletter of the same name, our podcast provides you with direct access to our narrated articles, interviews with industry experts, bleeding-edge research, and can't miss industry news recaps. That Sounds Profitable, right? Assumptions and conventional wisdom will be challenged. Easy answers with no proof of efficacy will be exposed. Because the thinking that got podcast advertising close to a billion dollars annually will need to be drastically overhauled to bring in the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars podcast advertising deserves.

Sounds Profitable is a technology podcast hosted by Bryan Barletta, with 1,000 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Bryan Barletta hosts Sounds Profitable, a technology show with 1,000 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #956

  The 2027 Ambies Open for Submissions, IAB Labels AI-Made Ads, & More

  Aug 19, 20266 min

  Today in the business of podcasting: The Podcast Academy opened submissions for the 2027 Ambies, spanning 23 show categories. This cycle adds Best Music Podcast, Episode of The Year, and a new Advertising category covering Best Ad Read, Best Branded Podcast, and Podcast Advertiser of The Year. Triton Digital released its Australian Podcast Ranker for July 2026. Mamamia Out Loud held the top spot, Hamish and Andy placed second, and ABC News Top Stories cracked the top three for the first time. The IAB updated its AI Transparency and Disclosure Framework with a standardized sparkle icon or text label for advertising where AI materially changes what consumers see or hear. The harder problem is keeping that disclosure attached to the creative as it moves through agencies, DSPs, ad servers, and publishers. Buzzsprout reports more than 11,000 HLS video episodes are now live on Apple Podcasts. Among 562 established shows, median Apple Podcasts downloads rose 19 percent in the 28 days after a show's first HLS video episode. To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here . You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

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  Episode #955

  That Stupid Radio

  Aug 19, 202616 min

  A nine-button Italian radio with a dead app can teach us some lessons about podcast discovery. Written by Tom Webster Edited and narrated by Gavin Gaddis" Find the full article here.

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  Episode #954

  The YouTube Definition of a View, Podcast Study 2026 Announced, & More

  Aug 18, 20267 min

  Today in the business of podcasting: Spotify says a bug, not a policy, made a podcast ad appear unskippable, telling Podnews the 15-second skip was hidden in the viral example and has since been fixed — and that skipping works for both Free and Premium listeners YouTube changes how it counts a "view" starting August 24, registering a play from the very first frame while making the more meaningful "engaged views" metric private, cutting off third-party rankers and data companies Point-To-Point Marketing and Strategic Solutions Research announce the Podcast Study 2026, a national effort on discovery, loyalty, and monetization co-sponsored by Crooked Media, NPR, and PRX, with findings due September 14-15 at the Sounds Profitable Business Summit The Streaming Wars reports NFL insider Tom Pelissero, out at ESPN, has landed at both Netflix and Spotify-owned The Ringer, a case study in one institutional job splintering into several targeted assignments A Magellan AI case study details how boutique network Rhapsody Voices used data-driven creator-sponsor matching to reach better than 80% sell-through on two priority shows as it scaled beyond manual research To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

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  Episode #953

  Spotify's "Unskippable" Ads, Video in Podcasting's Top 50, & More

  Aug 17, 20268 min

  Today in the business of podcasting: Register for Ask a Marketer: How Advertisers Read the Research Spotify has begun selling unskippable podcast ads that Premium listeners cannot jump past, even with the standard 15-second skip. The move follows the company's test of a "Skip Ahead" button that automatically skips ad breaks, sponsorships, and intros. Amplifi Media's Steven Goldstein pushes back on the widely shared claim that only 10 of the top 200 podcasts have video. His own tally finds 84% of Edison's US Top 50 now publish full video episodes, along with 77% of Apple's Top 100. Australian podcast ad spend broadened well beyond tech and finance in Q2 2026, according to ARN's iHeart and Magellan AI. Alcohol led the growth at 58% quarter on quarter, and Airbnb topped the advertiser rankings. Creators are moving away from platform exclusivity as Netflix lets shows from Rhett & Link and Nick DiGiovanni run on YouTube at the same time. Free ad-supported channels on Amazon Prime Video and Roku are becoming part of the same strategy. Steve Raizes argues the industry's giant podcast guarantees function as subscriber-acquisition campaigns for streaming platforms rather than ad plays. Because those deals expire, he says talent should trade peak leverage for ownership of an operating business. To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

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  Episode #952

  First Podcast Movement NYC Speakers, Nielsen to Acquire DoubleVerify, & More

  Aug 14, 202610 min

  This week in the business of podcasting: Tom Webster walks through Podcast Movement's five-day takeover of Terminal 5 in New York City, from the inaugural Sounds Profitable Business Summit to a creator conference spanning more than 80 sessions across five stages. Sport Social's Ryan Barker makes the case that official club podcasts are the natural landing spot for betting sponsorship money as the Premier League phases out front-of-shirt gambling deals in 2026/27. Quill and CoHost CEO Fatima Zaidi explains why branded podcasts get cut, and lays out the named audience, defined behavior change, and single accountable owner that lasting shows share. Nielsen agreed to acquire media verification company DoubleVerify in a $2.15 billion all-cash deal, pairing audience data with verification tooling across a stack that explicitly includes audio. To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here . You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

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Based on semantic analysis of episode topics and host coverage, this show is a strong guest fit for executives in:

Industry fit is computed by PitchCentric using vector embeddings of the show's episode catalog.