đWhen the Community Builders Canât Afford to Stay, When the Rankings Don't Agree, Nobody's Actually Winning
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Today weâre sharing difficult news from the independent podcasting community.
BIPOC Podcast Creators, a network that has connected 2,150 creators over five years, is seeking new leadership as its co-founders step back to focus on their growing businesses and families.
This announcement reflects a reality many independent podcast producers face: sustaining community infrastructure while building sustainable creative careers requires resources, time, and support that often stretch beyond individual capacity.
At Podwires, we exist precisely to address this challenge. Our mission is to amplify and support independent podcast producersâcreators like those at BIPOC Podcast Creators who build vital spaces for underrepresented voices, who refuse to remain invisible in an industry that often overlooks them, and who create the content and community the mainstream podcast ecosystem fails to provide.
The work of independent creators matters. The connections they build matter. And ensuring these voices have platforms and support systems matters.
Co-founders Tangia R. Al-awaji Estrada and Maribel Quezada Smith share their announcement about BIPOC Podcast Creatorsâ future and the opportunity for someone to carry this community forward.
Weâre asking our readers: continue supporting independent podcast creators. Subscribe, share their work, and help ensure vital community spaces like this one can thrive.
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Todayâs reading time is 5 minutes. - Miko Santos (February 7 2026)
đď¸Today, weâve got the inside scoop on:
January's Rankings Tell a Story About Who's Not Growing
When the Rankings Don't Agree, Nobody's Actually Winning
Spotify Just Became Your Landlord
Podcast Insight: While You Were Chasing Clips, Trust Became a Relationship Problem
PodBusiness : When the Community Builders Canât Afford to Stay
Job Board : ACAST - Ad Operations Director, Americas
PODTRAC | PODSCRIBE
When the Rankings Don't Agree, Nobody's Actually Winning
Podwires Rundown : January 2026 podcast rankings dropped from both Podscribe and Podtrac, and theyâre telling contradictory stories. Podscribe reports that 9 of the top 10 publishers saw audio reach decline in January, with only Red Seat Ventures posting gains. Podtrac counters that 14 US publishers increased their Unique Monthly Audience over December. So which is it â growth or decline? Hereâs what nobodyâs saying: both datasets can be technically accurate while proving the same uncomfortable point. The rankings are consolidating around a shrinking number of shows within publishers, and measurement fragmentation means nobody actually knows whatâs happening.
Two separate ranking systems released January 2026 data with apparently conflicting findings. Podscribeâs Industry Ranker tracks audio reach, downloads, views per episode, and advertising spend across top shows and publishers. Podtrac measures Unique Monthly Audience (UMA) and download metrics for US and global publishers.
Podscribe reports Crime Junkie claiming the #1 audio reach position, The Daily dropping to #2 despite slight reach increases, and Pod Save America entering the top 10. Publisher-level data from Podscribe shows 9 of the top 10 declining in audio reach. Podtracâs data indicates 14 US publishers grew UMA month-over-month, though only 12 increased downloads, with significantly weaker global performance (6 publishers up in UMA, 4 up in downloads).
The Key Points:
Crime Junkie overtakes The Daily for #1 audio reach despite The Daily posting slight reach increases, while Pod Save America enters the top 10 for the first time
Podscribe reports 9 of top 10 publishers declining in audio reach with only Red Seat Ventures gaining, suggesting consolidation at the publisher level
Podtrac contradicts with 14 US publishers increasing UMA but only 12 increasing downloads, revealing a gap between audience reach and actual consumption
BetterHelp returns to #1 advertiser by spend with just 6% month-over-month growth, while Progressive Insurance, Rocket, and DraftKings enter top advertiser rankings
Global performance significantly weaker than US metrics â only 6 global publishers increased UMA and just 4 increased downloads, compared to 14 and 12 respectively in the US
Why It Matters:
When two major industry ranking systems report contradictory trends using different methodologies, it exposes a measurement crisis that affects everyone making business decisions based on rankings data. Podscribe and Podtrac arenât measuring the same things the same ways, which means publishers promoting âgrowthâ and advertisers evaluating reach are working from incompatible datasets. The contradiction reveals something more troubling than measurement differences: individual hit shows can drive publisher UMA increases even as overall publisher audio reach declines, suggesting audiences are consolidating around fewer shows rather than expanding across catalogs. Thatâs not growth. Thatâs concentration.
The Big Picture:
For podcast creators and producers, these contradictory rankings expose the industryâs dirty secret about measurement. Youâre making production decisions, pricing advertising, and pitching sponsors based on ranking systems that canât agree on basic directional trends. Podscribe says publishers are declining. Podtrac says publishers are growing. Both canât be right â unless theyâre measuring different enough things that the contradiction doesnât matter, which is worse.
The practical implication: if 9 of the top 10 publishers are declining in audio reach (Podscribe) but 14 publishers are increasing UMA (Podtrac), then one of two things is happening. Either the measurement methodologies are so different that theyâre functionally tracking separate realities, or the metrics are revealing a concentration effect where a few hit shows drive UMA gains while overall publisher reach shrinks.
The second explanation is more likely and more concerning. It suggests Crime Junkie can hit #1 while its publisherâs overall reach potentially declines. Smosh Reads Reddit Stories can jump rankings while the broader publisher catalog struggles.
For advertisers trying to allocate podcast budgets, this data fragmentation is expensive. When youâre evaluating which shows or publishers to buy, do you trust Podscribeâs reach metrics or Podtracâs UMA numbers? The industry hasnât standardized measurement, which means youâre comparing incompatible datasets and hoping your attribution models catch the difference. BetterHelp returning to #1 advertiser position with only 6% month-over-month growth suggests either overall ad spend is weak (making 6% gains enough for #1) or that advertiser concentration is intensifying. Neither interpretation is optimistic.
The show-level movements tell their own story. Crime Junkie overtaking The Daily for #1 audio reach is notable â true crime beating news in a news-heavy environment. Pod Save America entering the top 10 reflects either political content surging or measurement capturing audience that was always there but undercounted. Smosh Reads Reddit Stories jumping ahead of Candace suggests audience preference for entertainment format over personality-driven commentary, or possibly that video podcast metrics (where Smosh likely dominates) are weighted differently across ranking systems.
The global versus US performance gap is stark. Only 6 global publishers increased UMA compared to 14 in the US. Only 4 global publishers grew downloads compared to 12 domestically. Thatâs a 2.3x difference in growth rates between markets, suggesting either international podcast growth has stalled or that US measurement is capturing audience that global metrics miss. For publishers betting on international expansion to offset domestic saturation, this data suggests the playbook isnât working.
The advertiser shifts â Progressive Insurance, Rocket, and DraftKings entering top spenders â could indicate healthy category diversification. Or it could mean existing advertisers reduced spend enough that lower-commitment brands reached top rankings. Without absolute spend numbers, we canât distinguish between ânew advertisers increasing budgetsâ and âexisting advertisers cutting back.â
Hereâs the uncomfortable truth: when ranking systems contradict each other this directly, it means the industry lacks measurement consensus sophisticated enough to support the business decisions being made on top of it. Publishers are raising rates based on rankings theyâre climbing. Advertisers are reducing spend on publishers showing decline. Creators are changing formats to chase ranking positions. And nobody actually knows if the rankings reflect reality or measurement artifacts.
The only consensus between both datasets: whateverâs happening isnât uniform growth. Publishers are winning or losing based on factors both rankers canât fully capture. Shows are consolidating audience even as total listening may or may not expand. Advertisers are shifting spend between categories without clear growth indicators.
Fair play to both Podscribe and Podtrac for publishing monthly data. But the contradiction between their January reports proves the podcast industry still hasnât solved the measurement standardization problem thatâs haunted it for years. Until we do, every ranking is simultaneously true and useless.
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PODTRAC
While You Were Chasing Clips, Trust Became a Relationship Problem
Podwires Rundown : JAR Podcast Solutions just published an analysis of the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer that should make every podcaster rethink their content strategy. Hereâs the part nobodyâs saying out loud: while the industry keeps pushing you toward short-form clips and TikTok strategy, trust is collapsing everywhere except in long-form relationships. The data shows 70% of people are now hesitant to trust anyone who differs from them in values or information sources. You know what doesnât build trust? Twelve-second clips optimized for impressions.
Roger Nairn, CEO of JAR Podcast Solutions, connects the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer findings to podcasting strategy in a detailed analysis. The Trust Barometer reveals that global trust is fragmenting as people retreat into âinsularityâ â trusting their immediate circle while institutional trust erodes. The report shows developed countries sitting at a trust index of just 49, with only employers (78) and business broadly (64) clearing the âtrustedâ threshold. Meanwhile, trust in national government leaders dropped 16 points and major news organizations fell 11 points.
The Key Points:
70% of people globally are âgenerally hesitant or unwillingâ to trust someone who differs from them in values, facts/sources, problem-solving approaches, or lifestyle â making trust conditional and relationship-dependent
Trust gains are strongest for immediate circles: âmy neighborsâ (+11), âmy coworkersâ (+11), and âmy family and friendsâ (+11) while institutional trust plummets
Only 39% consume information from politically different sources weekly or more, down 6 points year-over-year, creating under-exposed audiences rather than just misinformed ones
âMy employerâ (78 trust score) is the most trusted institution globally â higher than NGOs (58), media (54), and government (53) â making employee-facing podcasts strategically valuable
Trust transfers through influencers audiences already trust: 57-62% would trust or consider trusting a distrusted company after endorsement by a trusted influencer, proving long-form relationship-building matters
Why It Matters:
The fragmentation of trust fundamentally changes what podcasting success looks like in 2026. When people trust their immediate circle more than institutions, and when 70% wonât trust people different from them, your content strategy canât be about reach anymore â it has to be about relationship depth. Short-form clips optimize for impressions while trust quietly dies. Long-form podcasting is the only format that gives you enough time to do what the data says matters: show consistency, reveal decision-making, rebuild context, and feature the humans who make your brand real. The industry keeps telling podcasters to atomize everything for social platforms. The trust data says thatâs backwards.
The Big Picture:
For podcast creators, this research exposes an uncomfortable gap between platform incentives and audience needs. YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram reward short-form clips that generate impressions. But the Edelman data reveals that trust â the thing that turns casual listeners into committed audiences â requires relationship time that short-form canât provide. Youâre being optimized for the wrong metric.
The practical implication: if youâre spending 80% of your production effort on clips and 20% on the flagship show, youâve got it inverted. The flagship long-form content is where parasocial relationships form, where trust compounds, where listeners decide youâre worth their time long-term. The clips are trailers, not the movie. Yet most creators are making trailers and hoping someone cares.
For podcast producers working with brands, the employer trust advantage (78 vs. 54 for media broadly) is a massive strategic opportunity that nobodyâs capitalizing on. Internal podcasts arenât just ânice-to-have comms toolsâ â theyâre trust infrastructure in the only institution people still trust. If youâre pitching brands on external shows but ignoring their employee audiences, youâre leaving the highest-trust channel untapped.
The industry implication is darker. Podcastingâs growth story depends on discovery, and discovery increasingly happens on platforms optimizing for short-form engagement. But if trust formation requires long-form relationship building, weâve got a structural problem: the discovery layer optimizes for impressions while the monetization layer requires trust. Platforms win either way. Creators get stuck in the middle, making content for algorithms that donât value what audiences actually need to commit.
JARâs analysis calls this out directly: âYou are not just competing with other brands. Youâre competing with distrust, fatigue, and a collapsing shared reality.â Thatâs the 2026 podcast market. Most creators are still optimizing for 2019âs playbook â make good content, clip it for social, hope the algorithm delivers. The trust data says that playbook builds awareness, not relationships. And in a market where 70% wonât trust people different from them, awareness without relationship is worthless.
Hereâs the part that should terrify you: if podcasting becomes just another content format optimized for platform distribution rather than relationship depth, we become disposable. We turn into what JAR warns against â âcontentâ instead of âpremium content.â The mediumâs advantage has always been intimacy and trust. The moment we sacrifice that for clip performance metrics, weâre just slower, less visual TikTok.
The strategic move isnât abandoning short-form entirely. Itâs inverting the priority. Make long-form flagship content that earns trust and builds relationships. Then atomize it for discovery. Not the other way around. The trust data gives you permission to stop chasing every platform trend and focus on what actually compounds: showing up consistently, in long form, as yourself.
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BIPOC
When the Community Builders Canât Afford to Stay
Podwires Rundown : BIPOC Podcast Creators is closing its doors. After five years of building a 2,150-member community, co-founders Tangia R. Al-awaji Estrada and Maribel Quezada Smith announced theyâre offering the organization for acquisition within 30 days. If no one steps forward, operations wind down. Theyâre not leaving podcasting â theyâre leaving the volunteer work of building infrastructure the industry should have funded.
Co-founders Tangia R. Al-awaji Estrada (Audacious Strategies) and Maribel Quezada Smith (Diferente Creative) publicly announced the decision via community message, citing the need to focus on scaling their individual businesses while raising young children. The acquisition opportunity includes the LLC, brand assets, website, social platforms, Discord community, email list, content library, and an established revenue model through sponsorships and events. Interested parties have 30 days to contact the founders before operations close permanently.
The Key Points:
BIPOC Podcast Creators built a 2,150-member community over five years, creating infrastructure for marginalized creators that the broader podcast industry failed to provide
Founders are offering acquisition within 30 days â including all assets, community platforms, content library, and proven sponsorship/event revenue model â before permanent closure
The closure isnât about failure â itâs about founders needing to prioritize their profitable businesses (Audacious Strategies and Diferente Creative) over volunteer community leadership
No replacement leadership has emerged despite five years of community building, revealing the difficulty of sustaining creator-led organizations without institutional support
The pattern repeats across podcast communities â volunteer-led organizations serving underrepresented creators consistently struggle to convert community value into sustainable business models
Why It Matters:
This closure exposes an uncomfortable truth about podcast industry economics: the people doing essential community infrastructure work canât afford to keep doing it. BIPOC Podcast Creators didnât fail â it succeeded at building community, making connections, and amplifying voices the industry ignores. But success at community building doesnât pay the bills, especially when youâre simultaneously trying to scale your actual business and raise children. The founders are making the rational economic choice. The industry that benefited from their work â platforms, networks, advertisers who got access to diverse creator talent through this community â never funded it properly.
The Big Picture:
For podcast creators, especially those from marginalized communities, this announcement should trigger a reckoning about volunteer labor economics. Community infrastructure work â the kind that creates networking opportunities, provides resources, builds support systems â is real work that generates real value. But it typically falls to people with the least resources to sustain it. The founders spent five years building something the industry needed, and now theyâre offering it for acquisition because building it didnât build their businesses.
Hereâs the uncomfortable part: nobodyâs stepping up. Five years of community building, 2,150 members, proven revenue model, and theyâre giving 30 days notice for acquisition. If this were a revenue-generating media property with equivalent reach, thereâd be multiple offers. But a community organization serving underrepresented creators? The silence is deafening. This isnât about BIPOC Podcast Creators specifically â itâs about what the industry values and what it merely appreciates.
For podcast industry executives and platforms, this closure is a mirror. Every diversity initiative, every âwe need more diverse voicesâ statement, every panel about representation in podcasting depended on organizations like this doing the actual work of building community infrastructure. The platforms didnât fund it. The networks didnât sustain it. The advertisers chasing diverse audiences didnât invest in the communities that aggregated those creators. Instead, two founders did it themselves while building separate businesses and raising kids. Now theyâre stopping, and the industry response is... what, exactly?
The practical reality: if youâre running a volunteer creator community right now, watch this closely. BIPOC Podcast Creators had everything â engaged membership, proven model, five years of momentum, respected founders. And it still couldnât convert community value into sustainable operations that compensated leadership fairly. Thatâs not a management failure. Thatâs a market failure. The industry takes the community benefits without paying for community infrastructure.
The acquisition opportunity is real â someone could step in with proper funding and institutional support and turn this into sustainable infrastructure. But that requires recognizing community building as actual work worth paying for, not volunteer labor to exploit. If no one acquires it in 30 days, the industry loses infrastructure it never properly valued while it existed.
For creators currently benefiting from similar communities, the message is clear: these organizations are fragile because the industry makes them fragile. They run on founder dedication until founders canât afford to anymore. Then they close. And everyone acts surprised that volunteer labor has limits.
The founders will be fine â theyâre focusing on profitable businesses they actually own. Their community members lose infrastructure. The industry loses aggregated access to diverse creator talent. And in six months, someone will host another panel asking âwhy donât we have more diverse voices in podcasting?â while ignoring that we just watched essential infrastructure close because nobody would fund it.
Fair play to the founders for building something meaningful and for making the economically rational choice to focus on their businesses. But the industry that benefited from their work? It should be ashamed itâs watching this close without stepping up.
EDISON RESEARCH
Spotify Just Became Your Landlord
Podwires Rundown: Edison Researchâs latest Share of Ear data dropped a milestone: 25% of Americans 13+ now use Spotify daily. Thatâs a 317% increase since 2015, making Spotify the second most popular streaming audio brand behind only YouTubeâs audio offerings.
Impressive growth story, right?
Hereâs what the celebration misses: one platform now controls a quarter of American audio consumption on any given day. Thatâs not market competition. Thatâs market consolidation. And if youâre a podcast creator banking on open RSS to save you, this data should terrify you.
Edison Researchâs Q4 2025 Share of Ear study tracks Spotifyâs rise from 6% daily reach in 2015 to 25% in 2025. The growth spans both ad-supported and ad-free tiers, positioning Spotify as the second-largest streaming audio platform by daily reach, trailing only YouTubeâs audio-centered offerings. The study measures consumption across âan incredibly full and competitive landscape of other audio options,â making Spotifyâs gains even more significant given the crowded market.
The Key Points:
One-quarter of Americans 13+ listen to Spotify daily as of Q4 2025, representing 25% daily reach across all demographics
317% growth from 2015 to 2025 â Spotify jumped from 6% daily reach to 25% over a decade, significantly outpacing other streaming audio platforms
Second only to YouTube for daily reach among streaming audio brands, creating a two-platform dominance in the audio streaming market
Growth occurred across both tiers â ad-supported and ad-free subscribers both contributed to Spotifyâs expansion, indicating strength across different monetization models
Edison tracks this through Share of Ear subscription data â the full competitive analysis and tier-specific performance is available only to paid subscribers of Edisonâs research
Why It Matters:
When one platform reaches a quarter of American audio listeners on any given day, that platform stops being a distribution option and starts being distribution infrastructure. Creators donât negotiate with infrastructure â they pay rent to access it. Spotifyâs 317% growth over a decade means theyâve successfully moved from âone option among manyâ to âthe place where a quarter of all daily audio consumption happens.â That gives them pricing power over creators, control over discovery algorithms, and leverage over advertising rates. The âcompetitive landscapeâ Edison mentions is increasingly theoretical â if 25% of listeners are on Spotify daily and YouTube controls another massive chunk, youâre not operating in a competitive market. Youâre operating in a duopoly.
The Big Picture:
For podcast creators, this data exposes the gap between RSS idealism and listener reality. You can publish to open RSS all you want, but if a quarter of your potential audience is on Spotify daily, youâre playing by their rules whether you like it or not. That means accepting their payment terms, their advertising split, their discovery algorithm, their monetization features, their exclusive windowing options. Edisonâs phrasing â âone of the most popular audio streaming platformsâ â undersells what 25% daily reach actually means. Thatâs not popularity. Thatâs power.
The practical implication for podcasters: platform dependency just became more expensive. When Spotify had 6% daily reach in 2015, you could afford to skip them or negotiate harder. At 25% daily reach, skipping Spotify means skipping a quarter of potential listeners. Thatâs not a viable strategy for most creators trying to build sustainable audiences. Youâre not choosing between platforms anymore. Youâre choosing how much control to surrender to access the audience thatâs already there.
For podcast producers and agencies, the two-platform dominance (Spotify and YouTube) should reshape how you think about production investment. If those two platforms control the majority of daily audio consumption, then producing content optimized for their specific requirements isnât just good strategy â itâs survival. But hereâs the uncomfortable part: optimizing for platform requirements means sacrificing format flexibility, creative control, and often the very elements that made podcasting feel different from traditional media in the first place.
For the podcast industry broadly, Edisonâs data reveals how quickly âopen podcastingâ became a technical truth without practical relevance. Yes, RSS distribution still exists. Yes, independent podcast apps still function. But when 25% of listeners are on Spotify and YouTube dominates video podcasting consumption, the open ecosystem is dying by audience attrition, not by force. Nobodyâs being banned from RSS. Theyâre just choosing platforms that offer better experience, better discovery, better integration. Thatâs a market loss, not a regulatory fight, which makes it much harder to reverse.
The advertising implications are particularly dark. If Spotify controls 25% of daily audio reach, they control 25% of audio advertising inventory access. Advertisers following audiences donât care about your principles around open RSS â they care about reaching listeners efficiently. That gives Spotify (and YouTube) leverage over advertising rates, measurement standards, and attribution requirements that the rest of the podcast industry has to accept or ignore. When Edison notes growth âacross both ad-free and ad-supported tiers,â theyâre describing a platform thatâs winning regardless of which monetization model succeeds. Spotify wins either way.
Fair play to Spotify for executing growth at scale in a competitive market. But letâs not pretend this is healthy market competition. This is consolidation. When one platform reaches a quarter of Americans daily and the industry celebrates it as a âmilestone,â weâre celebrating our own increasing dependence on infrastructure we donât control. The open podcasting advocates can keep arguing about RSS features and discovery improvements, but Edisonâs data shows the battleâs already lost. A quarter of the audience is gone. Theyâre not coming back.
IAB
While Publishers Fight AI, Podcasting Isnât Even at the Table
Podwires Rundown: The Interactive Advertising Bureau just released draft legislation targeting AI scraping â the âAI Accountability for Publishers Actâ announced at their Annual Leadership Meeting. IAB President David Cohen didnât mince words: AI companies are âfree ridingâ on publisher content, and without immediate legislative action, âthe ad-supported publishing industry, as we know it, will be a shell of itselfâ within years. The proposal centers on âunjust enrichmentâ â if AI companies use your content, they pay for it. Hereâs what nobodyâs saying: podcasting runs on the exact same ad-supported model thatâs about to get destroyed, and weâre not even part of this fight yet.
IAB President and CEO David Cohen announced proposed draft legislation titled the âAI Accountability for Publishers Actâ at the organizationâs Annual Leadership Meeting in Palm Springs. The legislation addresses large-scale scraping of publisher content by AI systems to train large language models and provide AI-driven summaries, often without compensation.
Cohen frames this as an âexistential crisisâ for the ad-supported publishing ecosystem, comparing the current situation to the collapse of local news publishers in the mid-2000s when ad revenues shifted to technology platforms. The proposed legislation builds around the legal concept of âunjust enrichmentâ â a principle requiring payment when someone receives a benefit at anotherâs expense.
The Key Points:
AI companies are scraping publisher content to train language models and generate summaries without paying for it, threatening the ad-supported economic model that makes free content possible
IAB warns the ad-supported publishing industry will be âa shell of itselfâ within years without immediate legislative action, as litigation would take too long to prevent industry collapse
The legislation uses âunjust enrichmentâ as its legal foundation â a straightforward fairness principle requiring AI companies to pay for content they benefit from using
Cohen compares this to the mid-2000s local news collapse when thousands of outlets closed as ad revenues shifted to tech platforms, creating ânews desertsâ with accountability and information access losses
The proposal aims to protect publishers before courts can resolve the issue â Cohen explicitly states âwe simply donât have the time for litigation to play outâ before irreversible industry damage occurs
Why It Matters:
Podcasting is conspicuously absent from this conversation, despite running on the identical economic model the IAB is trying to save. Ad-supported publishers create content, make it available online, and fund operations through advertising revenue. Ad-supported podcasters create content, distribute it via RSS, and fund operations through advertising revenue. When AI companies scrape publisher websites to train models and generate summaries without compensation, they undermine the revenue model funding content creation. When AI companies scrape podcast transcripts, show notes, and audio content to train models and generate podcast summaries without compensation, they undermine the exact same model. But only publishers are drafting legislation. Podcasters arenât even at the table yet, despite facing identical economic threats from AI scraping.
The Big Picture:
For podcast creators and producers, the IABâs proposed legislation exposes how unprepared podcasting is for the AI extraction economy. Publishers recognized the threat and mobilized legislative response. Podcasters are still debating whether video podcasting matters more than audio quality. The gap isnât just about political sophistication â itâs about recognizing existential threats before they destroy your business model.
Hereâs the uncomfortable part: podcast content is arguably more valuable for AI training than text-based publisher content. Conversational audio contains natural language patterns, emotional tone, pacing, humor, storytelling structure â exactly what language models need to sound human. Podcast transcripts provide training data for voice AI systems. Show notes and descriptions teach summary generation. Your podcast is training the AI that will replace your podcast. And youâre not getting paid for it.
The practical implication for podcasters: youâre about to face the same unjust enrichment problem publishers are fighting, but without legislative protection. When AI-generated podcast summaries start appearing in search results, reducing listener traffic to your actual show, you wonât have legal recourse under current law. When AI voice agents start reading your show notes and key points instead of sending listeners to your episodes, you wonât have compensation mechanisms. Publishers saw this coming and drafted legislation. Podcasters are still optimizing for platform algorithms.
For podcast industry organizations and trade groups, the IABâs action should trigger immediate mobilization. Whereâs the podcast industry equivalent of this legislative push? IAB represents 700+ media companies with resources to draft legislation, lobby lawmakers, and coordinate industry response. Podcast industry groups are fragmented across multiple organizations with competing priorities and limited political infrastructure. That fragmentation means podcasting wonât get included in publisher protections unless someone specifically advocates for inclusion. Nobodyâs advocating.
The revenue dynamics make this particularly urgent for podcasting. Publishers have subscription models as backup monetization when ad revenues decline. Premium publications can survive behind paywalls. Podcasters are overwhelmingly dependent on advertising revenue with minimal subscription adoption outside a few successful creators. If AI scraping undermines the ad-supported model, podcasting has fewer fallback options than text publishing. The IAB warns publishers will become âa shellâ of themselves within years. Podcasting would hollow out faster.
Cohenâs comparison to mid-2000s local news collapse is instructive. Technology platforms shifted ad revenues away from local publishers, creating ânews desertsâ where accountability and information access disappeared. Nobody stopped it because the economic shift happened gradually, then suddenly. AI scraping of podcast content follows the same pattern â gradual extraction of value through training data and summaries, then sudden collapse when the ad-supported model canât sustain creator economics anymore. By the time podcasters mobilize legislative response, the business model will already be destroyed.
The legislationâs âunjust enrichmentâ framework is strategically smart because itâs politically neutral and legally established. You donât need to convince lawmakers that AI is bad or that copyright law needs updating. You just need to demonstrate that one party is receiving uncompensated benefits at another partyâs expense. Thatâs a Roman legal principle that predates digital technology entirely. Podcasters could adopt the same framework â if they moved quickly enough to get included before legislation advances without them.
Fair play to the IAB for recognizing the threat and taking legislative action. But the fact that podcasting isnât part of this conversation yet reveals how politically immature the podcast industry remains. Weâre still arguing about RSS versus platform distribution while publishers are drafting federal legislation to protect their economic model. The grown-ups are in the room fighting for survival. Podcasters werenât invited because nobody knows we exist as a legislative priority.
The irony Cohen notes is perfect: if AI companies destroy the ad-supported publishing ecosystem, âthere will be little quality content left to summarize and poorer data to train on.â The same applies to podcasting. Destroy the ad-supported podcast model and AI companies lose access to the conversational audio data that makes their voice systems sound natural. But by the time they realize they killed their training data source, itâs too late to restore creator economics.
If youâre a podcast creator reading this and thinking âthis doesnât affect me,â youâre wrong. Youâre just not paying attention to how your business model is about to get extracted by AI systems you canât control or negotiate with. Publishers woke up and drafted legislation. Podcasters are still asleep.
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