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Today's reading time is 5 minutes. - Miko Santos

The Podwires Rundown : If you’ve been scheduling your podcast releases at midnight because “that’s when Spotify updates,” you might want to rethink your strategy. New data from Edison Research’s Share of Ear study reveals exactly when Americans are actually consuming podcasts – and the findings should fundamentally change how you think about release timing, promotional windows, and even content programming decisions.

The Data :Edison Research’s Q3 2025 Share of Ear study, scheduled for full release to subscribers next week, reveals that Americans age 13+ spend 10% of their total daily audio time listening to podcasts. The study tracked podcast consumption patterns across all dayparts among the 13+ demographic, providing the most comprehensive picture of when podcast listening actually occurs throughout the day.

The Key Points:

The Big Picture :For podcasters and producers, this data transforms guesswork into strategy. Release your episodes before 10am to capture that massive midday listening block, and schedule your social media promotion to hit during the 6am-2pm window when the majority of your audience is actively consuming. This is when you want your episode at the top of feeds and your promotional content in front of eyeballs.

For sales teams and advertisers, understanding these consumption patterns means you can strategically place time-sensitive promotions and calls-to-action during peak listening windows. The overnight listening percentage (14% combined from 6pm-6am) also validates investment in evergreen content and deep-dive programming that serves different audience segments with varying schedules. The industry as a whole benefits from having concrete data to counter the assumption that podcasts are merely “background content” – this level of time investment across specific dayparts demonstrates intentional, engaged consumption that deserves premium positioning in the broader audio ecosystem.

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The Podwires Rundown: While TV and radio stations watch their traditional ad revenue circle the drain, they’re making a calculated pivot that should get your attention: they’re coming for podcast revenue. S&P Global’s new Broadcast Outlook 2025 reveals that radio station owners are shifting investment from cost-cutting to podcasting, streaming, and digital marketing services as their legacy business models collapse. Radio’s digital revenue – including podcasting – is projected to grow 6.5% in 2025 to $1.75 billion, eventually reaching $2.31 billion by 2030. Translation: established broadcasters with massive local reach, existing sales teams, and decades of advertiser relationships are betting their future on the medium you’re building.

The Data : S&P Global Market Intelligence’s comprehensive Broadcast Outlook 2025, authored by Justin Nielson and released October 7, projects a brutal contraction for traditional broadcast media over the next five years. TV station ad revenue will decline 12.5% to $21.81 billion in 2025, with national spot revenue dropping 4.3%. Radio faces similar headwinds, with national spot ad revenue declining 5.0% to $1.76 billion in 2025. However, the report identifies podcasting as a critical growth engine, with S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan projecting podcast ad revenue to surge 22% in 2025, crossing the $1 billion threshold for the first time.

The Key Points:

The Big Picture: For podcasters and producers, broadcast’s decline into podcasting creates both immediate threats and strategic opportunities. The threat is real: when a radio station launches a podcast with an established personality, they’re competing for the same sponsorship dollars with a 50-year head start on advertiser relationships and professional sales infrastructure. Radio groups have local market dominance, existing production facilities, and the ability to cross-promote podcasts to millions of broadcast listeners – advantages that independent creators simply cannot match.

But here’s the opportunity: Understanding that traditional broadcasters are desperate for digital revenue means savvy podcast producers can position themselves as acquisition targets or partnership opportunities. Radio stations need podcasting expertise, digital-native production skills, and younger audience connections that their traditional operations can’t deliver organically.

For the industry, this influx of broadcast investment legitimizes podcasting with traditional advertisers who’ve been hesitant to shift budgets from proven broadcast buys. The $1 billion+ podcast ad market validates the medium to CMOs and media buyers, potentially expanding the overall pie even as competition intensifies. Actionable move for podcasters: Identify radio station groups in your market or genre and pitch partnership deals where you bring digital expertise and they bring sales infrastructure – the data shows they’re actively looking for these relationships. For producers: Develop local market podcasts that complement rather than compete with broadcast content, positioning your shows as digital extensions that radio groups can acquire or license to fill their podcasting mandate while their traditional revenue streams collapse.

The Podwires Rundown : Forget everything you think you know about AI replacing podcast hosts. The real question isn’t whether AI voices sound convincing enough to fool your audience. It’s whether they can replicate something far more valuable: the specific type of parasocial relationship you’ve built with your listeners. New research from Changsha University reveals that humans form two distinctly different relationships with AI—”assistant” or “friend”—and getting this wrong torpedoes both trust and monetization. For the struggling middle class of podcasting that can’t scale host-read ads, this isn’t theory. It’s a survival blueprint.

The Research

Tom Webster, Partner at Sounds Profitable, explored findings from a recent study published in Computers and Human Behavior titled “An Assistant or A Friend? The role of parasocial relationship of human-computer interaction,” conducted by researchers at the School of Economics & Management at Changsha University. The research examined how humans develop parasocial relationships—one-sided emotional connections with media personalities—specifically with AI entities. Webster connected this research to the podcast advertising landscape in an article published October 9, 2025, following a guest lecture at Steve Goldstein’s Business of Podcasting class at NYU.

The Key Points:

The Big Picture: For podcasters, this research validates that the relationship you’ve built with your audience is irreplaceable—AI can’t create it from scratch, but it might help you scale it in ways that were previously impossible for anyone outside the top 1% of shows. The podcasting middle class has been dying because shows are too small for major brand deals but too established to ignore revenue entirely.

Actionable strategy: Audit your show’s parasocial relationship type right now. Record yourself explaining your show to someone new. Do you sound like an expert advisor or a trusted friend? That’s your AI performance blueprint. For producers, the opportunity is building AI ad systems that detect and match parasocial relationship types automatically—not just voice cloning, but relationship cloning. The first network to nail this creates a massive competitive advantage in monetizing mid-tier shows.

For the industry, this solves the existential crisis of the long tail: thousands of quality podcasts with engaged audiences that can’t monetize. When every show can have truly host-read-style ads that maintain their unique audience relationship, the total addressable market for podcast advertising expands dramatically. But the shows that will fail aren’t the ones refusing AI—they’re the ones forcing competent AI voices into warm friend-shows or warm AI voices into authoritative expert-shows. Context isn’t just important. It’s everything.

The Podwires Rundown : Here’s something that should terrify and excite you in equal measure: your listeners’ brains are literally releasing oxytocin – the same chemical that bonds mothers to babies – every time they hear your voice. Alberto Betella, co-founder of RSS.com and PhD in affective computing, just dropped a comprehensive piece on the neuroscience behind why podcasting works, and it explains exactly why host-read ads crush programmatic ones, why consistency matters more than you think, and why AI voices in podcasting aren’t the threat we thought they were. They’re something else entirely.

Alberto Betella’s research, presented at Podcast Movement 2025 and published on the RSS.com blog, synthesizes decades of psychological research on parasocial relationships with cutting-edge findings in emotion AI. Drawing on foundational work by Horton & Wohl (1956) on parasocial bonds, along with neuroscience research on oxytocin release (Seltzer et al., 2010) and mirror neurons (Aziz-Zadeh et al., 2010), Betella maps how the human voice activates trust and empathy systems in listeners’ brains. The research reveals that podcasting’s unique one-to-one intimacy creates measurable neurological responses that explain why audiences form such strong bonds with hosts they’ll never meet.

The Key Points:

The Big Picture :For podcasters and producers, this research provides a roadmap for building sustainable shows. Know what you’re actually building: You’re not just creating content, you’re engineering repeated neurological experiences that compound over time into loyalty. This means consistency trumps perfection, and breaking your publishing rhythm doesn’t just hurt your stats – it breaks a ritual your listeners’ brains have learned to expect.

Protect the asset ruthlessly: Your authentic voice is what triggers oxytocin and mirror neuron activation. Every time you read a script you don’t believe in or promote something you wouldn’t use, you’re not just risking audience trust – you’re breaking a biological bond. The research shows trust disappears instantly but builds slowly. Approach AI strategically, not defensively: The emergence of AI voices that can replicate prosodic features means the industry needs disclosure standards and ethical frameworks, not blanket rejection. Producers who understand how to use AI to extend human presence (scaling personalized messages, maintaining shows during illness, creating accessible versions) without replacing authentic connection will have a competitive advantage. Make it actionable: Audit your show for authenticity breaks – are there segments where you sound like you’re reading instead of talking? Are there ad reads for products you’ve never used? Is your publishing schedule consistent enough to build that ritual familiarity? The science says these aren’t minor details. They’re the difference between a show that builds trust and one that breaks it.

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The Podwires Rundown: The 83rd annual Golden Globes just announced they’re handing out their first “Best Podcast” award this January, and the podcast industry is doing what it does best: celebrating without asking questions. John Mamola at Barrett Media did ask questions, and what he found should make every podcaster pause before popping champagne.

Out of 4.5 million podcasts worldwide, the Globes identified 25 nominees – that’s 0.0006% of the ecosystem. The selection process? Handled by Luminate, a data company that just happens to be owned by Penske, which also owns the Golden Globes.

The platforms consulted? Apple, Spotify, and YouTube – conspicuously absent are Podbean, Spreaker, or even iHeartRadio. And here’s the kicker: the Golden Globes celebrate film and television, not audio. So is this recognition or is this an awards show that’s been bleeding viewers since 2020 (down from 18.32 million to under 10 million) trying to manufacture relevance by inviting podcast influencers to tune in?

Barrett Media columnist John Mamola published a critical analysis on October 10, 2025, examining the Golden Globes’ debut podcast category. The piece questions whether the award represents genuine recognition or strategic marketing for a declining awards show. Mamola interviewed multiple podcast industry leaders and investigated the selection methodology, revealing that nominees were determined by Luminate – an analytics company owned by Penske, which also owns the Golden Globes since 2023. The 25 nominees include shows from major news organizations (ABC’s 20/20, CBS’s 48 Hours, NBC’s Dateline, NY Times’ The Daily, NPR’s Up First), sports properties (Barstool’s Pardon My Take, The Ringer’s Bill Simmons Podcast), and political voices (Candace Owens, Pod Save America, Ben Shapiro, Megyn Kelly, Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, and Theo Von among others).

The Key Points:

The Big Picture

For podcasters and producers, this moment requires strategic thinking, not reflexive celebration. Understand what’s actually happening: An awards show hemorrhaging relevance is trying to tap into podcasting’s cultural momentum and influence. That’s not inherently bad, but it’s also not inherently validating. The Golden Globes didn’t create a podcast category because they suddenly understood our medium – they created it because they need what we’ve built. Question the methodology: When selection criteria aren’t transparent and the company determining nominees is owned by the same entity running the awards, that’s not an honor system built for the medium’s benefit. It’s one built for the awards show’s benefit. When major podcast platforms are excluded from consideration, you’re not seeing the podcast industry recognized – you’re seeing specific distribution channels rewarded. Demand better or build our own: Podcasting has legitimate awards infrastructure already – from the Podcast Academy Awards to the Ambies to platform-specific recognition programs. If the Golden Globes want to credibly celebrate podcasting, they need independent judging, transparent criteria, and methodology that reflects how our industry actually defines itself (starting with the word “audio,” as Mamola’s interviews revealed). Otherwise, we’re better off investing energy in awards created by and for podcasters rather than accepting table scraps from television’s declining empire. Make it actionable: If you’re nominated, congratulations – use the platform strategically. But don’t confuse attendance with validation. The podcast industry doesn’t need Hollywood’s permission to matter. We’re already the medium eating their lunch. Let’s make sure any award we accept actually recognizes that reality rather than just borrowing our audience to prop up theirs.

Grow your business through podcasting. Marketplace Podwires connects you with skilled producers who can craft compelling stories that align with your brand. Start your podcast journey today! 👈

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