Australia's $18.4B Ad Market Just Sent Podcasting A Warning
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The numbers are in from Down Under. And if you’re paying attention, they tell a story that’s equal parts encouraging and sobering.
IAB Australia dropped its full-year Internet Advertising Revenue Report this week — compiled by PwC Australia — and the headline is this: the Australian internet advertising market grew 11.5% year-on-year to reach $18.4 billion in 2025. Video is eating everything. Search is minting money. And podcasting? Podcasting is growing. But the gap between “growing” and “winning” is getting harder to ignore.
Source: IAB Australia Internet Advertising Revenue Report (IARR), full calendar year 2025, prepared by PwC Australia. Released March 2, 2026.
The Key Points:
Total internet advertising hit $18.4 billion in Australia in 2025, up 11.5% year-on-year — a market that is growing, but, as IAB Australia CEO Gai Le Roy put it, “selectively.”
Video is the engine. At $5.4 billion and 19.8% YoY growth, video now represents 29% of total online advertising expenditure. Social video alone grew 35.1%.
Audio advertising reached $339 million, up 8.2% year-on-year — with podcasting growth explicitly cited as outpacing streaming audio. That’s the good news.
Search captured $8.0 billion — nearly 24x the audio category’s spend. Let that sink in.
Programmatic buying actually lost share during peak sporting season, while agency insertion orders gained ground — a signal that premium, high-trust environments are back in favor.
Why It Matters
Podcasting is growing faster than streaming audio in one of the world’s most sophisticated digital ad markets. That’s a genuine win. But $339 million across the entire audio category — in a $18.4 billion market — means audio is still fighting for scraps at a very large table. Video advertising is capturing a disproportionate share of new dollars. And when social video is growing at 35%, advertisers chasing scale and reach are going to follow the money. The uncomfortable part? That money isn’t automatically flowing to podcasting just because the medium is growing. Growth without share gain is just running to stand still.
The Big Picture
Here’s what Australian ad market data actually tells podcasters and producers about the global trajectory:
For podcasters: The fact that podcasting outpaced streaming audio in growth rate is validation that on-demand, intimate audio still has a differentiated value proposition for advertisers. But you cannot sit back and let “faster growth” become the story you tell yourself. Video’s 29% share of total digital ad spend should be flashing red. If you’re not developing a deliberate video strategy — not just slapping a camera in the room, but genuinely producing for visual platforms — you are ceding advertiser attention to formats that are consolidating share aggressively.
For podcast producers: The rise of insertion order buying over programmatic during high-value moments is a signal, not a blip. Premium contextual environments — which is exactly what a well-produced podcast is — command direct deals. This is your argument for getting off the programmatic floor and into direct advertiser conversations. Build the case now.
For the industry: Australia’s data reflects a pattern playing out globally. Social video’s 35.1% growth isn’t happening in a vacuum — it’s being turbocharged by creator economy platforms and short-form content that’s trained advertisers to expect video-first. Podcasting’s advantage is trust and conversion, not scale. The industry needs to get far more aggressive about communicating effectiveness data — not just reach — or video’s momentum will define the narrative for ad buyers everywhere, not just in Sydney.
The market is growing. Podcasting is growing. The question is whether we’re growing fast enough to matter when the next budget conversation happens.
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