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Five key developments shaping digital audio landscape
Story #1: Narrative Podcasts Aren’t Dead
New data from Cumulus Media, Westwood One, and Signal Hill Insights released Monday, November 25th, shows narrative podcasts like “Serial” still command 54% of total listening time—contradicting months of industry assumptions that YouTube and video would kill story-driven audio. Even listeners who prefer video split their time nearly evenly between narrative shows and chatcasts. Signal Hill’s Paul Riismandel says the podcast charts are misleading: “Throughout that long, long tail, there is so much narrative podcasting.” Translation? The industry’s been pivoting to video based on incomplete data.
Story #2: LATAM Podcast Market Hits Critical Mass
Latin America’s podcast market reached mainstream status with news programming leading at 35% of total listening—more than double comedy—according to Triton Digital’s report covering January through August 2025, released Monday. Ninety-three percent of top shows are produced in local languages, with Portuguese at 51% and Spanish at 42%. Spotify grabbed 32% of downloads. Triton VP Oscar Sermeño says the region has evolved into “a fully developed digital audio economy.” The kicker? Seven percent of listening is done in English—an untapped opportunity for international creators.
Story #3: Pocket Casts Overhauls Search
Pocket Casts announced Monday it’s rolling out a new search algorithm in version 8.0 that displays podcasts and episodes together in ranked results, with type-ahead predictive search and better non-English language handling. Users can now play episodes directly from search results. The bigger addition: Smart Playlists that automatically gather episodes based on rules you set. Whether anyone actually uses it? That’s the test. Podcast apps have been trying to crack discovery for a decade—if this works, expect Apple and Spotify to copy it by spring.
Story #4: Australian Ad Market Shows Video Dominance
Australia’s digital advertising market hit $4.6 billion in the September 2025 quarter, up 9.7% year-over-year, IAB Australia reported Monday. Audio advertising grew just 3.5% to $82 million while video jumped 16.7% to $1.347 billion. Video now represents 73% of total display spending, with social video growing fastest at 29.4%. Connected TV grabbed 62% of video spending. For podcast creators banking on audio ad growth? The numbers say you’re in the slow lane while video laps the field.
Story #5: Crowdfunded Journalism Works (Actually)
The Europeans podcast raised €15,000 from listeners in just two months to fund a two-episode investigative miniseries on European housing, childcare, and drug policies, releasing Friday, November 29th. The award-winning European politics show has been largely listener-funded since 2017, but this marks the first time they crowdfunded a specific project. Co-creator Katy Lee called it “a useful contribution in a time of quite grim politics.” If a niche European politics podcast can raise five figures in eight weeks, that’s a model other independent shows should be watching closely.
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