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A startup called Particle spent the past few weeks transcribing more than 130,000 podcasts and turning the whole catalogue into something an AI agent can query.
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Big week. Letâs get into it.
đď¸ Today, we have exclusive insights on:
Podtracâs first look at YouTubeâs new âEngaged Viewsâ metric finds the publicly displayed view count now runs 36% ahead of the number who actually watched past the first second
The IAB just raised its 2026 ad-spend forecast for the second time this year, with podcast advertising now expected to grow 8.7%
Substack gave podcasts their own permanent tab in its app, a discovery bet that lands directly on Podwiresâ own platform
Plus five quick hits: Acast puts its whole European business under one former TikTok executive, two ex-Hard Fork hosts are shopping a podcast deal that could hit US$5 million a year, a sports-radio veteran launches a three-day-a-week show on Foxâs OutKick, Apple widens what its embeddable web player can do, and next weekâs Podcast Movement New York doubles as a preview of fresh industry research.
Todayâs reading time is 5 minutes. - Miko Santos (September 13, 2026)
PLATFORM MEASUREMENT
Podtrac's first read on YouTube's new view count: it's counting a lot of people who didn't actually watch
Podwires Rundown: YouTube now counts a âviewâ from the first frame of playback, and Podtracâs first analysis of the change finds the public number this creates is running 36% ahead of âEngaged Views,â the harder metric that requires someone to actually keep watching.
Source: Podtracâs own Measurement Blog (Sept. 3, 2026), cross-checked against Inside Radioâs independent write-up (Sept. 3, 2026). Podtrac sells podcast measurement and ranking services, so it has a direct commercial interest in being seen as the authority that catches a platform-reported number overstating audience size â this is the company whose entire pitch is âthe raw platform numbers canât be trusted, use ours instead.â
Key Points:
YouTube changed its view-counting methodology on 24 August. A âviewâ is now logged from the very first frame, including autoplay on the YouTube homepage, worldwide, across Shorts, long-form video, podcasts and livestreams.
Podtrac analysed 84.2 million views recorded across YouTube podcast channels on 27â28 August using its access to YouTubeâs Analytics and Reporting APIs.
For video podcast episodes sitting on a showâs official YouTube playlist, Engaged Views came in at 64% of the public View count â a 36-percentage-point gap.
For other podcast-related videos on the same channels (clips, trailers, extras), the gap was wider: Engaged Views were just 58% of Views.
Engaged Views isnât shown publicly. It only surfaces inside YouTube Studio and the Analytics API, meaning most sponsors and outside observers will only ever see the inflated number unless someone pulls the other one for them.
Why It Matters
A platform quietly redefining its headline metric isnât new, but this one has a direct dollar cost attached. If youâve been quoting your channelâs View count in a media kit or a sponsor renewal call since late August, youâve been overstating your audience by roughly a third without knowing it, and a sharp buyer whoâs read the same reporting Podtrac just published will know it too.
YouTubeâs own framing, that the new rule gives creators a bigger number to show partners, is true and also beside the point. A bigger number that a buyer can independently check against Engaged Views isnât leverage. Itâs a discrepancy waiting to be found in someone elseâs due diligence.
The Big Picture
For Independent Producers: Pull your showâs Engaged Views from YouTube Studio before your next sponsor conversation and use that figure, not the public View count, in any pitch deck you send out from today. If a current sponsor asks why this monthâs numbers look different from Augustâs, the honest answer is the platform changed the definition, not your show.
For the Industry: Watch whether other measurement firms follow Podtrac in standardising on Engaged Views for their own rankings. If the industry converges on the harder number as the real currency, YouTubeâs public View count starts to function as a marketing figure rather than a measurement one.
This Weekâs Skill Gap: Reading a platformâs own measurement documentation closely enough to catch a change like this before a sponsor does is a genuinely useful, hireable skill for a growing show. Worth a look through the podwires.com marketplace if your own reporting hasnât caught up yet.
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AD MARKET
IAB raises its 2026 ad forecast again, and podcasts are still outpacing the rest of digital audio
Podwires Rundown: The Interactive Advertising Bureau lifted its full-year 2026 US ad-spend growth forecast to 12.3%, up 2.8 points from January, and within that update it now expects podcast advertising specifically to grow 8.7% this year, ahead of every other digital audio format.
Source: IABâs own newsroom (Sept. 10, 2026), also distributed via PR Newswire the same day. The IAB is the trade body for the digital advertising industry itâs forecasting growth for, and its members are the platforms and agencies who benefit most from buyers reading a bullish number and opening their wallets. The underlying survey of more than 200 brand and agency decision-makers is real fieldwork; the âstrong first halfâ framing is an industry association talking its own book.
Key Points:
The forecast update, titled the 2026 Outlook Study: September Update, raises full-year US ad spend growth to 12.3%, from a January projection of 9.5%.
Podcast advertising is now forecast to grow 8.7% in 2026, a small upward revision from Januaryâs 8.6% estimate, and more than double the growth rate of other digital audio formats.
Social media remains the fastest-growing channel at 16.5%, followed by connected TV at 15.6% and commerce media at 13.6%; podcasts sit behind those three but ahead of paid search, digital display, digital out-of-home and gaming.
The IAB attributes the stronger first half to cyclical events, including the Winter Olympics and the FIFA World Cup, plus easing buyer concern about broader economic conditions.
Eighty-six percent of buyers surveyed expect AI to change how they measure media within the next 12 months, and customer acquisition rose to 63% as a stated media goal, both signals of where ad budgets are heading next, not just how big they are.
Why It Matters
A trade body raising its own forecast twice in one year is a genuinely useful data point, and also not a neutral one. The IAB doesnât run ad campaigns; its members sell the inventory this forecast makes look more attractive. That doesnât make the 8.7% number wrong, but it does mean the right response to it is âhereâs leverage for a rate conversation,â not âthe money is definitely coming to my show specifically.â
The AI-measurement finding buried in the same release matters more than the headline growth number for anyone selling sponsorships directly. If 86% of buyers expect their own measurement standards to shift within a year, a producerâs current download-based pitch has a shelf life, and itâs shorter than most people planning their Q4 rate card are assuming.
The Big Picture
For Independent Producers: Use the 8.7% podcast-specific figure, not the 12.3% blended number, in any renewal conversation this quarter â itâs the more defensible comparison, and itâs still ahead of most alternatives a buyer is weighing. If youâre pitching a brand-new sponsor before yearâs end, lead with the cyclical-events context so they understand why budgets loosened, rather than implying the growth is guaranteed to continue at this pace into 2027.
For the Industry: Watch the January 2027 forecast closely. Two upward revisions in one year on the back of one-off events (an Olympics, a World Cup) sets up an awkward comparison if 2027 doesnât have an equivalent tentpole to point to
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PLATFORM & DISTRIBUTION
Substack gave podcasts a dedicated home in its app â and Podwires itself lives there
Podwires Rundown: Substack rolled out a standalone Podcast tab across its iOS and Android apps this week, turning what used to be a buried feed item into a permanent, browsable home for every show a reader already follows and a discovery surface for the ones they donât.
Source: On Substack, Substackâs own product blog (week of Sept. 8â11, 2026). This is Substack announcing its feature, and the company has an obvious interest in creators believing its platform is now a serious podcast home rather than a newsletter tool with an audio bolt-on. The $200 million creator-earnings figure it cites is Substackâs own aggregate number, not independently audited.
Key Points:
The Podcast tab is now live for everyone on Substackâs iOS and Android apps, giving listeners a dedicated inbox for shows they subscribe to instead of a mixed feed of posts and episodes.
Substack says creators publishing podcasts on the platform collectively earn more than US$200 million a year, though it hasnât broken down how that splits between subscriptions, ads or other revenue.
Substack also has text-to-speech built into the app now, meaning almost any written post can be listened to like a podcast episode, further merging the newsletter and audio show formats.
The company frames the move as a response to fragmented discovery across the internet, positioning itself as a single place where a creatorâs writing and audio work can build one audience rather than two separate ones.
Podwires itself is a Substack publication. This change isnât a hypothetical platform shift for readers of this newsletter; itâs a change to the app this newsletter is delivered through.
Why It Matters
Substackâs pitch has always been that a writerâs email list is worth more than someone elseâs algorithm. Folding podcasts into that same pitch, one owned relationship instead of a newsletter subscriber list here and a podcast app audience there, is a genuine structural difference from Spotify or Apple, where your listener is fundamentally the platformâs user first.
The catch is discovery. A dedicated tab only helps if people open it, and Substackâs existing audience skews toward text-first readers who subscribed for the writing. Whether a Podcast tab meaningfully surfaces new shows to people who werenât already looking for one, versus just tidying up the experience for existing subscribers, isnât something this announcement actually demonstrates either way.
The Big Picture
For Independent Producers: If you already run a Substack newsletter alongside your show, or youâve been weighing whether to consolidate the two, check whether your existing podcast is showing up correctly in the new tab this week; migration bugs are common in a rollout like this. If you donât have a newsletter yet, this is a reasonable moment to test whether pairing one with your show is worth the production time, since the two now share a single discovery surface rather than needing separate promotion.
For the Industry: Newsletter platforms treating podcasts as a native format rather than an attachment is a trend worth tracking alongside Beehiivâs own podcast-hosting push earlier this year. Two newsletter-first platforms making the same bet in the same year suggests the âemail plus audioâ bundle is becoming a real category, not just a Substack experiment.
đ§ New: Trailer Mixtape is now a Chrome extension.
Discover your next favourite podcast in just 60 seconds.
Discovering your next favourite podcast just got a whole lot easier. The hand-curated feed from podwires.com/trailermixtapeâreal trailers and standout episodes picked by real people, not an algorithm chasing your watch timeânow lives right in your browser.
What it does
Brings the same 60-second discovery feed from Trailer Mixtape straight to Chrome, no extra tab required.
Tap any cover to hear a show introduce itself in about a minute â no account, no download, no commitment.
Surfaces trending shows, editorâs picks, and fresh trailers (audio and video) across every genre.
Found a keeper? Open it instantly in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you already listen.
Why itâs different
Every pick comes with a clear reason it was chosen â the result is a discovery layer built by human curators, minus the black-box recommendations. Whether youâre hunting for your next obsession or a producer scouting whatâs working right now, you get the first 60 seconds that matter, curated by people who actually listened.
Get it
Install the extension from the Chrome Web Store
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Do you have a trailer or must-hear episode worth spotlighting? Submissions are free, and a real person reviews every one.
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Podwires is now an app.
If youâre one of our 500+ podcast producers, editors, and audio pros, you can now find work the way you scroll everything else â by swiping.
New jobs (editors, sound designers, producers, showrunners, video editors, and writers) get posted constantly. Swipe right on the ones that fit, left on the ones that donât. Jobs are ranked against your skills, so the best matches surface first.
Your profile becomes your shopfront â add your rates, availability, and portfolio, and clients browsing Podwires can message you directly. No commission, no middleman: you keep the whole fee.
Thereâs also a talk space to get a second opinion on a rough cut, float a proposal before you send it, or pass on work that isnât right for you.
Itâs early days â a few hundred producers are in, and the conversation side is quiet. If you want to be one of the first voices in the room, this is your moment.
Joining is free. Paid plans exist for extra features but are managed on the website, not the app.
⥠RAPID FIRE
Acast puts a former TikTok executive in charge of its whole European business. Liv Sandberg, currently TikTokâs regional GM for Central Europe and the Nordics, joins Acast as EVP of Europe in early 2027, unifying the Nordic and wider European operations under one leader for the first time, after the regionâs sales grew 25% in Q2. (PodcastingToday, Sept. 9)
Two former Hard Fork hosts are shopping a podcast deal that could be worth US$5 million a year. Kevin Roose and Casey Newton, who left the New York Times and Platformer, respectively, signed with UTA and are negotiating a still-untitled AI-focused show, a reminder of what a name and an established audience are worth outside a legacy masthead. (Bloomberg, Sept. 10)
Craig Carton launches a three-day-a-week show on Foxâs OutKick. The longtime WFAN sports-radio hostâs new program debuted September 8, airing Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, another sports-radio name moving his audience into an independent podcast slot rather than staying inside terrestrial radio. (Variety)
Apple widens what its embeddable podcast player can do on outside websites. The updated player now supports full video playback, separate single-episode and full-show variants, and artwork-matched styling, making it easier to keep listeners on a showâs own site instead of funnelling them into an app. Listens through the embed still count towards a showâs regular stats via its host, per Apple. (Spreekbuis.nl, Sept. 4; Dutch-language trade coverage, no English-language write-up located independently)
Podcast Movement New York and the Sounds Profitable Business Summit open next week. Running September 14â18 at Terminal 5, the week includes Tom Webster previewing fresh findings from Sounds Profitableâs Podcast Landscape 2026 research and the IABâs Podcast Upfront on September 16 â worth watching for whatever gets presented live, since none of that research is public yet. (Podcast Movementâs own event site, cross-checked against RAIN Newsâ published schedule, Sept. 9)
Women Under Pressure Podcast Launches Sept 15 to Tackle Hidden Burnout in High-Stakes Careers.
THATâS WRAP
Before you send your next sponsor deck, open YouTube Studio and check what your show's Engaged Views actually say next to the View count everyone else is going to quote at you.
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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