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Acast just took four months and 4,300 people to prove what you probably already knew. Nobody in your audience is âan audio personâ or âa video personâ anymore; theyâre a person driving at 7am and a person on the couch at 9pm.
That distinction changes what you should be building next. The other two lead stories this week are the IABâs effort to referee podcastingâs measurement mess as video eats the format and what it means that two of tech journalismâs biggest names just chose public radio over a startup or a streamer.
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Big week. Letâs get into it.
đď¸ Today, we have exclusive insights on:
Acastâs Podcast Pulse 2026 finds 88% of podcast fans now consume both audio and video, and podcast hosts are the only creator category gaining consumer trust this year
The IAB used its Podcast Upfront to admit podcasting earns 16% of peopleâs media time but only 2% of ad dollars and released new guidance rather than a new metric to close the gap
Kevin Roose and Casey Newton skipped the usual startup-or-streamer path and took their new AI show, Machine Gods, to NPR instead
Plus five quick hits: a rival ad-verification score gets a major buying-side backer, three ABC Chew alumni take their food network to Libsyn, Steven Bartlett launches a $400 million fund to bankroll other creators, Spotify locks up exclusive ad sales on a top UK comedy podcast, and Threads gives podcasters their own promotional toolkit.
Todayâs reading time is 7 minutes. - Miko Santos
AUDIENCE BEHAVIOUR
Acast's Podcast Pulse 2026: the format argument is over, and context won
Podwires Rundown: Acastâs third annual Podcast Pulse study, surveying 4,300 people across 13 markets, finds 88% of podcast fans now consume both audio and video, up ten points on last year, and that podcast hosts are the only category of creator whose trust with audiences grew rather than flattened or fell.
Source: Acastâs own press release and report, embargoed for release September 17, 2026, cross-checked against PodcastingTodayâs independent write-up of the same findings. This is Acastâs own commissioned research (fieldwork by Differentology, an independent research firm, in August 2026), and Acast is the worldâs largest pure-play podcast company â a report concluding that producers should distribute across every format rather than picking one serves Acastâs own platform strategy directly, since thatâs exactly what it sells.
Key Points:
78% of fans use two or more formats regularly, and 63% start an episode in one format (say, audio in the car) and finish it in another (video, later, on a couch). Only 10% are audio-only now, and just 2% are video-only.
Trust in podcast hostsâ product recommendations rose to 42%, up nine points on 2025. Every other creator category tested (journalists, YouTubers, celebrities, and social influencers) held flat or fell over the same period.
It takes 7.2 ad exposures before a fan seriously considers a brand, fewer than any other medium the study tested, audio and video alike.
The report maps four daily âmomentsâ: Companion (screen-free, 64% treat podcasts as a daily habit, 80% take action afterwards), Settled (55% co-view video podcasts on a connected TV), Scroll (63% of people who watch a clip convert into full-episode listeners) and Live (event attendance up 80% since 2024).
Reaching a fan through both audio and a social clip earns âmaximum attentionâ from one in three of them, more than repeating the same message inside a single show does.
Why It Matters
The headline framing here is almost too convenient for the company that paid for the research. Of course the worldâs largest podcast platform found that producers need to be everywhere at once. But the trust number is the one thatâs harder to wave away as self-serving, because it cuts against Acastâs own pitch: if podcast hosts are gaining trust because of the direct, format-agnostic relationship they have with listeners, thatâs an argument for producers owning that relationship closely, not necessarily for handing distribution to a platform.
The 7.2-exposure figure is the most useful number in the release and the one nobodyâs press pitch is going to lead with, because itâs a genuinely small ask. If youâve been telling a sponsor they need a twelve-episode run to see results, this data says you can make a credible case for fewer.
The Big Picture
For Independent Producers: Donât read â88% consume both formatsâ as an instruction to start filming video tomorrow if you donât already. It means matching format to moment: if your show is a commute companion, audio-first is still correct, but clipping three social moments a week to catch the Scroll audience costs little and the conversion data here says it works. Pull the trust and exposure numbers into your next sponsor deck; theyâre more defensible than most benchmarks vendors hand you.
For the Industry: See if independent research (Signal Hill Insights, Edison) confirms Acastâs numbers over the next few months. Itâs not disqualifying that a platformâs own study finds the exact result that confirms its own business model, but itâs also not confirmation coming in
This Weekâs Skill Gap: Turning one long-form episode into the Companion, Scroll, and Live versions described by this data genuinely requires three different production skills, not just one. If your show is still handled by a single editor doing everything, thatâs worth a look at podwires.com
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AD MARKET & MEASUREMENT
IAB's Podcast Upfront: 16% of media time, 2% of ad dollars, and a decision not to invent a new metric
Podwires Rundowns: Opening this yearâs Podcast Upfront on September 16, IAB Media Centre director Jason Adamski put podcastingâs awkward number on the table without softening it: the format is nearly 5% of digital media time and still under 1% of digital ad spend. Zoom out to all digital audio, and the gap widens further, 16% of the time against 2% of dollars.
Source: IABâs own guidance document, released September 16, 2026, with the Upfront remarks reported independently by Inside Audio Marketing on September 17. The IAB is podcastingâs own advertising trade body, funded by the platforms and agencies itâs forecasting growth for. A report arguing that ad spend should catch up to listening time is, structurally, a report arguing its members deserve more of advertisersâ budgets. The underlying numbers (Cumulus Media/Signal Hill Insights video data, Descriptâs AI-usage survey) are independent third-party research the IAB cited, not IABâs own fieldwork.
Key Points:
Podcast ad revenue grew 17.6% in 2025 to nearly US$3 billion, 27% faster than digital advertising overall, and 1,300 brands bought podcast ads for the first time last year.
Video is now âthe front doorâ, per Adamski: 49% of podcast consumers used video in 2026, up from 30% four years ago, and 37% of Gen Z consume more via video than audio.
Rather than build a new measurement standard, the IABâs newly released guidance applies its existing podcast and digital-video standards across delivery environments and instead focuses on disclosure: telling advertisers plainly which methodology applies to a given platform or format.
Citing a Descript survey, Adamski said nearly two-thirds of podcasters already use generative AI for editing, transcription and clips. âAI is for the workflow, not the microphone,â he said, flagging translation as a likely exception.
The IABâs plan for 2027 adds further work specifically on AI-generated content, disclosure and trust, in addition to this yearâs video and measurement guidance.
Why It Matters
âWe already have two standards, we donât need a thirdâ is a more useful position than it sounds. Every time an industry body responds to a new format by inventing a brand-new metric, buyers get one more number to reconcile against the ones they already track. Applying existing standards across YouTube, Spotify and Appleâs different counting methods, and simply requiring clearer disclosure of which one is in play, is a smaller ask thatâs actually achievable this year rather than a multi-year standards fight.
The AI framing is worth sitting with too. An industry body telling its members AI belongs in the editing suite and not the mic is a real, if implicit, stance against synthetic hosts, and one more data point that the trust premium Acastâs study just measured is specifically a human host premium, not a podcast-format premium.
The Big Picture
For Independent Producers: If you sell direct, ask every prospective sponsor which measurement standard theyâre planning to hold your show to before the campaign starts, not after â the disclosure gap this guidance targets is exactly where a mismatch costs you a renewal. If youâre not already using AI for editing, transcription or clip generation, the IAB is telling you thatâs now baseline practice, not an edge.
For the Industry: The 16%-time-versus-2%-spend gap is the number worth remembering for every rate negotiation this quarter. Itâs the IABâs own trade body making the case that podcasting is underpriced relative to attention, which is unusual candour from a body that mostly cheerleads.
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CREATOR ECONOMY
Kevin Roose and Casey Newton took their new AI show to NPR, not a startup or a streamer
Podwires Rundown: The former Hard Fork hosts, who left the New York Times to build an independent media company, signed with public radio rather than the venture-backed path Bloomberg had reported them shopping just a week earlier at up to US$5 million a year.
Source: NPRâs own press release, September 16, 2026, cross-checked against independent reporting from Axios and earlier deal reporting from Bloomberg. NPRâs release is naturally framed as a programming win for public media; itâs a genuine announcement of a signed partnership, not a study or survey, so the usual commercial-interest caveat doesnât apply the same way here.
Key Points:
Machine Gods, a video-first, twice-weekly AI-focused show, launches on NPRâs app, YouTube and podcast platforms in October, with a radio-network rollout to follow in early 2027.
Roose and Newton co-own the show 50-50 through their own company; NPR handles distribution and, notably, ad sales. The pair arenât selling their own sponsorships.
Newton framed the choice explicitly against the alternative: âthereâs always a temptation to retreat behind a paywall or talk exclusively to insiders. What sold us on NPR is its public-service mission.â
The deal lands alongside a broader NPR fall push (a new midlife-focused show with WBUR and a weekend expansion of The Indicator from Planet Money) under new Chief Content Officer Nadine Zylstra.
Roose and Newton remain represented by UTA, so the NPR deal is a distribution and ad-sales partnership layered on top of talent representation, not an exclusive employment arrangement.
Why It Matters
The obvious read is âlegacy hosts chase legacy distribution,â but that undersells whatâs actually happening: Roose and Newton own the show outright and picked NPR specifically for its ad-sales infrastructure and reach, not because they needed a boss. Thatâs a rented-scale model, not a sold-out one, and itâs worth distinguishing from a straight acquisition.
It also quietly contradicts the version of this story where every big name is supposed to be building direct-to-fan on Substack or launching their own network. Sometimes the math says: keep the IP, rent someone elseâs ad sales team and distribution, and skip the overhead of building both yourself.
The Big Picture
For Independent Producers: You donât need an NPR-sized deal to use the same structure. If ad sales is the part of the business you hate or are bad at, a distribution or ad-sales-only partnership (keeping ownership of the show itself) is a real middle option between doing everything yourself and signing away your IP to a network.
For the Industry: Watch whether NPRâs ad-sales infrastructure, built for its own member-station network, can actually monetise a video-first AI show at the rate a commercial network would. Thatâs the real test of whether this model scales beyond one high-profile deal.
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⥠RAPID FIRE
Oxford Road partners with Bumper to push a shared audience-quality score into ad buying. Ad agency Oxford Road will bring the Bumper Score, a measure of whether a showâs ads actually reach a verified audience, into its client planning conversations, aiming to get a buying-side agency, not just a measurement vendor, behind a shared standard. (Announced September 17 via press release; independently reported by PodcastingToday)
Carla Hall, Clinton Kelly and Michael Symonâs food network signs an exclusive hosting and ad-sales deal with Libsyn. The All Chewed Up network, reuniting three hosts from ABCâs The Chew plus Stacy London on a fashion spin-off, moves its audio and video slate to Libsyn, which will also run advertising sales across the portfolio from this fall. (Libsyn press release, September 18)
Steven Bartlett and Authentic launch a $400 million fund to bankroll creator-led media companies. The new venture, OBSN, pairs Bartlettâs Diary of a CEO media operation with Authenticâs brand-licensing network (Reebok, Sports Illustrated, David Beckham) to fund creatorsâ expansion into products, licensing and international growth. (The Drop, September 18)
Spotify becomes exclusive ad-sales partner for The Romesh Ranganathan Show. From October 1, all advertising on the UK comedianâs podcast sells directly through Spotify, joining Parenting Hell and The Louis Theroux Podcast in its UK Owned & Licensed roster, another data point in this weekâs pattern of talent renting out ad sales rather than building it. (The Drop, September 17)
Threads rolls out profile cards, transcripts and audience insights for podcasters. Metaâs app now lets hosts post tappable episode links, guest tags and full transcripts directly in Threads posts, plus new analytics on how non-followers engage with podcast content, a discovery play as Threads closes in on 500 million users. (TechCrunch, September 16)
THATâS WRAP
Before you build a Q4 media kit, pull your show's 7.2-exposure and host-trust numbers from this week's Acast data â they'll do more for a renewal conversation than another download chart.
Do you have a story we should be covering or something in the pipeline that looks off? Tell us: editor@podwires.com.
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