Speakeasy Now Uses Barometer, True Native Media on Podcast Growth, & More

0:00This is the Download, your daily source for the essential news in the business of podcasting on Gavin Gattis. Here's what you need to know for today Tuesday, September 8. First up, the most powerful person in podcasting has spent millions in this space by Ashley Carmen. According to Magellan AI data, podcasting's biggest advertiser is Better Help with the lifetime estimated spend of $242 million in the industry since 2023. Bloomberg's Ashley Carmen profiles Brittany Clevenger, the online therapy company senior director of growth marketing. In 2025, Better Help's team worked with roughly 1,500 creators and the brand keeps ads running on more than 1,000 shows at any given moment. Next up, MS now doubles down on Crooked Media, adding Love It or Leave It to Weekend lineup.

1:03MS now is deepening its bet on Crooked Media, adding John Love It's Show, Love It or Leave It to the video podcast version to its Saturday night lineup beginning September 12. The show will air at 11 p.m. Eastern Time following Crooked as a limited series running through the 2026 midterm elections. Love It or Leave It which launched in 2017 and tapes weekly in front of a live Hollywood audience has racked up more than 200 million listens and views across YouTube and podcast platforms. The move billed on an earlier deal that brought a Crooked Media block featuring clips from shows like Podsave America and Strix scrutiny to the network. Next up, creator industry admits that fee pricing is out of control but can't agree on a fix. This is a digit-day deep dive into the creator economy that still has no agreed-upon-weight price talent leaving brands guessing and often overpaying. Roughly half of marketers mispriced creator fees and 40% say they feel like they've overpaid

2:07while one influencer marketing CEO estimates brands pay too much 90% of the time. Proposed fixed rates from rate calculators like Fores, Rate Check and Billion Dollar Boys Companion to formal industry standards though the IAB has published a creator tax onomy without any pricing guidance. Skeptics point out that the people building the tools are not the ones setting the prices. And for our final top story, this is a fun one NPR launches Senior Podcast Challenge. NPR is taking its podcast contest model to the other end of the age spectrum with a new Senior Podcast Challenge inviting American 65 and older to submit original audio stories of up to 8 minutes. Entries are due November 30th, must be entirely original with no copyrighted music and cannot use artificial intelligence in the writing or presentation. The grand prize winner and a guest will earn a trip to NPR headquarters in Washington

3:08and airtime on weekend edition Sunday, early next year. The contest extends the format NPR built in its student podcast challenge in 2018 and college podcast challenge in 2020. This time, courting a demographic of roughly 60 million people that is both the fastest growing part of the population and a fast growing slice of the podcast audience. As for the rest of the news, on today's episode of Pod Biz, our very own sounds profitable head of communications, Molly Demilier, details why you want to be a podcast moment with 2026 in New York. Co-host and Quill are running brand camp a free quarterly webinar series for B2B marketers with the next session on September 17th on how podcasts fit into the ABM strategy. Acast has named former Apple and Meta product leader Mark Bulling, its VP product and has promoted Ricardo Netto to managing director of US sales.

4:09On the latest pod news weekly review as a leaf blower rapidly approaches my window, Acast CEO Greg Glenday and backyard venture CEO Matt Sissneros discuss why Acast bought the US creator network in a $20 million deal. Architecture's Ari Paparo argues Google's antitrust remedy may matter more than the hot take suggests breaking down how forcing ADX to bid into into pre bid and Google ads to bid across rival exchanges could reshape the open web ad market. The this week in tech podcast network will move to DAX US for dynamic ad insertion and hosting starting in 2027 while keeping its host red inventory in house. And finally BBC Radio 4's in our time launches as a video podcast on BBC eye player on September 17th while its audio additions continue on radio 4 BBC sounds and podcast apps.

5:15That does it for today's issue of the download you could find links to everything I just talked about by clicking the link in your show notes that takes you to today's episode post on our site where you can also subscribe to get the newsletter version of the show every day. Today's issue was written and produced by myself Brian Brale de Tom Webster and Molly Demilier for Sounds Profitable. I'm Gavin Gattis and I'll see you tomorrow morning for the download recap.