What do the Podcast Industry’s Experts Think Will Happen in 2027?

[00:00:00] Jeff Umbro: Welcome to Podcast Perspectives, a show about the podcast industry and the people behind it. We began publishing in 2023, and so far, we've had 116 industry leaders on the show. On this special episode, we tapped 27 of them to talk to us about how they feel about this past year and what they're anticipating going into 2027. 2026, in my mind, was the year of the video podcast. The conversation around video podcasting has taken over every facet of the podcast industry. Netflix, Tubi, Hulu, and basically every streamer began carrying podcasts. Apple added HLS video to their platform, and it seems like only a matter of time before we can watch video podcasts on Apple TV. YouTube pushed podcasts further into living rooms by simply including podcasts on the platform. Conversations are brewing all over about how to add your shows to fast channels. Spotify began including international creators into SPP, their partnership program paying out video creators directly. Even iHeartRadio added video to their podcast app. The video conversation works backwards as well, as SiriusXM began selling YouTube's audio inventory. Basically, every client call I've had this year included some kind of discussion about their video or clipping strategy. And this focus on video helped the industry continue its year-over-year growth.

[00:01:16] Jeff Umbro: And because the economy loves a growth industry, there is more consolidation. The Vox Podcast Network got a new owner. OpenAI bought TBPN in a splashy acquisition, and we all got to entertain the idea of a SiriusXM and iHeart merger. There were some genuinely interesting talent deals and some huge but predictable ones as well.

[00:01:35] Jeff Umbro: Unfortunately, we lost Wondery during these reorgs. We spent 2026 watching ad agencies discuss how the industry needs to better define their metrics in order to bring in more advertisers. While this is a noble cause, it's one that rightly terrifies the podcast industry. The most prevalent feeling seems to be that the gap between the podcast haves and have-nots is only gonna get bigger, and anyone who wants to make a living in this space is more and more incentivized to create chat shows, which play better on video and for advertisers, as opposed to the narrative stories that we all grew up on. And of course, this conversation wouldn't be complete without a discussion of AI. While there was still more conversations about AI tools versus AI slop than any of us ever asked for. Podcast creators finally are beginning to embrace AI tools in 2026. That said, the conversation surrounding that usage seems to be happening behind closed doors. I'm positive that 2027 will surprise us. But in the meantime, we're gonna let 27 of the smartest people in the industry walk you through their own ideas of what's to come in 2027. And stay tuned until the end of the episode to hear everyone's favorite podcasts of the year. I wanna take a minute just to say thank you to everyone who tuned into the show this year. You can shoot us an email at listen@thepodglomerate.com and let us know who you'd like to hear from, what you'd like us to cover, or just to say hi. Thank you all so much for joining us, and let's get to the predictions

[00:02:56] Rox Codes: Hi, I'm Rox, CEO of Flightcast. What makes me the most optimistic right now about the industry in twenty twenty-seven is that video's coming to a lot of new platforms, and HLS is getting a lot bigger. I think what Apple Podcasts has done is pretty awesome and has largely changed the entire industry, and I'm really excited to see where that goes.

[00:03:14] Rox Codes: Now that it's on Amazon Music and, and, and on iHeart, and all of a sudden we're seeing podcasts going to Roku and Prime Video, and all these other destinations. I just, I love the idea of content being everywhere so that even the people who aren't on YouTube can find the content. Even the people who are in their car driving can find the content.

[00:03:32] Rox Codes: Even the people who are just on, on, on Roku will see all of the things that we are releasing 'cause probably the coolest thing about podcasting is that it can be a two-hour episode and then five twenty-minute sh- shorter videos and then thirty clips, and all of those give us the most opportunity to be everywhere of any form of content in the world.

[00:03:50] Rox Codes: So I'm excited to see more places for that content to be. What scares me the most is AI software is getting really good. AI vibe coding's getting really good, and I think we're gonna get to the point now where people are gonna get so good at building their own dashboards and their own mini tools that even if I make the best thing in the world, uh, it might not be as good as something made just for you 'cause there's no better dish than your mom's home cooking.

[00:04:12] Rox Codes: There's nothing better that I'm ever gonna make. I can't make a better peanut butter sandwich than you make 'cause you know just how you like it. Uh, even if I know how everybody kinda likes it, it's gonna be maybe a little bit too general for you. So I'm a little bit scared as a guy who builds stuff that even the best thing might not be good enough anymore

[00:04:27] Jeff Umbro: Next up is Amber Smith, a director at The Dr. Hyman Show

[00:04:32] Amber Smith: I think what's giving me the most optimism is the potential for growth and discovery, particularly with video on YouTube, is in my own personal work that I've done this year on Dr. Hyman's show. I've seen so... We've had explosive growth just on YouTube and really understanding learning that algorithm for the show as a whole.

[00:04:53] Amber Smith: And I feel like that's kind of filtering down to, um, audio platforms as well. So I'm just excited about the opportunity to push audience limits, um, with new tools for discovery

[00:05:06] Jeff Umbro: Justin McGoldrick, founder and producer of Sound Picture

[00:05:10] Justin McGoldrick: What excites me most about podcasting in 2026 and beyond is the borderless world that we now exist in. Podcasts, you know, it's almost cliché at this point, are now TV. TV is featuring podcasts. Everything is a v-video format. There's still an island of really incredible, you know, narrative audio storytelling happening.

[00:05:34] Justin McGoldrick: But it feels like there are more avenues to get things made than ever before and more means to actually do it. And while that, while that means letting go of some of what we've loved about the industry over the last 10, 15 years, for someone like me who's a producer, I am just looking for that tactile feeling of, of making something with other creatives whose work I admire and reaching audiences by telling those stories with the creatives that I like working with.

[00:06:14] Justin McGoldrick: So whatever format that ultimately lives in is, is f-fine by me, because it means that we get to be telling really incredible stories every day, and, and they're finding their audiences through more means than ever before. You know, I certainly mourn the loss of the fact that those are not being rewarded m-financially, and that y-they're difficult to, to make and often labors of love, um, because as a consumer, those are often the stories that I respond to most.

[00:06:50] Libby Absten: I'm Libby. I lead strategic growth and partnerships at Podcast Nation. What gives me the most optimism going into 2027 is seeing digital creators expand verticals and their IP into podcasting. We're seeing a lot of creators who have already built engaged audiences in digital bring those communities into audio and video.

[00:07:14] Libby Absten: And I think that creates a lot of opportunity for the industry, for discoverability, for growth

[00:07:22] Jeff Umbro: Tom Webster, partner at Sounds Profitable

[00:07:25] Tom Webster: You know, I, I'm both excited and, uh, I, I guess anxious about how much smart TV and the sort of the connected TV has become, uh, an, a venue for podcasting. It's exciting because it, it's another screen in front of people. It's exciting because it encourages co-consumption if, if people that are consuming podcasts on smart TVs are often doing it with two or more people.

[00:07:50] Tom Webster: Uh, and that's increasing audience, and those things are very exciting to me. Um, w- what scares me a little bit about that is that it's going to be harder and harder for all but the very top podcasts to compete on, on smart TV, uh, simply because of things like production quality and also the kind of gatekeepers of those smart TV apps But ultimately, I'm optimistic about having more avenues, uh, to put podcasting in front of people.

[00:08:19] Tom Webster: And I'm also optimistic about how AI can help. And I'm a heavy user of AI myself, and I see AI not as a way to kind of replace the creator, but as a way to help creators level up their quality so that their shows look as good as anybody else's if they are going to be consumed on smart TV. And I think the tools that the average creator has available to help them do that are better than they have ever been.

[00:08:43] Tom Webster: And so ultimately, I believe in the creator, I believe in open access to podcasting, uh, and I believe that the tools that we are going to have to make podcasting better are only going to get better. And so ultimately, I'm, you know, I'm bullish on the medium, or I wouldn't still be in it.

[00:09:00] Fatima Zaidi: I'm Fatima Zaidi, and I'm the founder and CEO of Quill and CoHost.

[00:09:05] Fatima Zaidi: The thing that gives me the most optimism is that video has opened the door to a whole new crowd. People who'd never touch a podcast app are now founding shows on YouTube, on their TVs, in their feeds. And the best narrative work out there right now is as good as anything on streaming. And I always say craft still wins.

[00:09:23] Chris Peterson: My name is Chris Peterson. I'm VP of Business Development at Red Seat Ventures. Red Seat Ventures is a company that partners with creators to help them grow their audience and revenue. And we were acquired by Fox Corporation about eighteen months ago, and we sit in the Tubi Media Group, which you can think of, of all things digital for Fox.

[00:09:46] Chris Peterson: So the thing I'm most optimistic about is the opportunity that we're seeing now with the growth of just sort of like expansion in the podcast space, um, shows, being able to find new distribution points, which will find new audience. Of course, I'm still a huge believer in the RSS feed and audio consumption, but, you know, over the last several years, we've seen YouTube really help grow, um, sometimes double, triple the size of audience.

[00:10:13] Chris Peterson: But now we're also seeing platforms, you know, like Tubi, who, uh, we work with very closely, of course. But, you know, Amazon and all these other streaming platforms now start to launch their own video on demand and even fast channel distribution opportunities for podcasts and shows. And so what that really does is just allow, you know, you to go from audio and YouTube to new platforms with new audiences, which of course increases monetization opportunities.

[00:10:42] Chris Peterson: So I'm really excited about that because I feel like right now we're at a point that all of these platforms are gonna lean heavily into creators, and that's just good for the industry.

[00:10:52] Odile Beniflah: Hi, I'm Odile Beniflah, head of US at Ausha, a podcast hosting and marketing platform dedicated to audience growth. To me, what's the most exciting about podcasting in twenty twenty-seven is how AI can be a game changer for podcast discovery.

[00:11:09] Odile Beniflah: As more people turn to AI for answers and recommendations, podcasts have a huge advantage. They're full of in-depth conversations, insights, expertise that AI can recognize and surface. AI can really help people discover your show, but also you as a trusted voice in your field. So in the age of AEO and GEO, podcasting is becoming one of the most powerful formats for discovery, and I think that's a huge opportunity for podcasters in our industry.

[00:11:42] Dusty Weis: Yeah, I'm Dusty Weiss. I'm the founder of Podcamp Media. We are a podcast production agency for brands based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And the thing that's giving me the most optimism this year is that we're beginning to see the start of the AI sloplash, the backlash to all the AI slop. Edison's new research is out, and they say that seventy-five percent of listeners are not gonna go near AI-generated podcast content.

[00:12:06] Dusty Weis: And you don't need to look any further than the comments in your reels feed to see that people are calling out this LLM-generated trash. We're flooded with it. We're not getting any value from it. And in spite of what some of the snake oil salespeople say, now that the novelty's wearing off, we just don't want it in our lives.

[00:12:25] Dusty Weis: Uh, what that means for the podcasting industry is it's time to redouble our efforts on what makes us real, what makes us authentic, and what makes us human. I haven't been shy about criticizing AI slop in the podcasting space, but they're just that, tools. And the tech industry has so much capital invested into this new AI hammer that they've built, they're trying to convince us that every pain point is a nail.

[00:12:49] Dusty Weis: Some of the new tools are gonna stick around. Some of them are awesome, frankly, but some are ultimately gonna fail to prove profitable once the venture capital runs out. And some, like Inception Point AI's podcast Snake Oil, were ridiculous to begin with. Most of us were just a little too polite to say it out loud.

[00:13:05] Dusty Weis: And as AI encroaches on listeners' entertainment and leisure time more and more, the way to get ahead isn't with more slop, it's with better, more human stories. That is what's making me feel optimistic about the podcast industry right now.

[00:13:20] Jeff Umbro: Richard Fawal, founder and CEO of Voxtopica

[00:13:24] Richard Fawal: Well, I think the thing that gives me the most optimism about the podcast industry and podcasting generally as we go into twenty twenty-seven is the continued growth of podcasting globally, um, and the fact that podcasting is, is still in early stages in parts of the world where it's rapidly growing.

[00:13:44] Richard Fawal: South America, Middle East and North Africa, Asia, um, Sub-Saharan Africa, all of these parts of the world are really star-- are fertile ground for podcasting and the podcasting industry. And it's also a huge opportunity for creators in those places to start making some really amazing content, amazing long-form content, not just TikTok videos , but amazing long-form content that I really believe is going to start to have a cultural and societal impact in places like that.

[00:14:20] Richard Fawal: So I'm really excited to see how in twenty twenty-seven, like the global reach of podcasting and the global reach of that sort of creator, uh, spirit that is behind podcasting, you know, spreads across the globe.

[00:14:33] Jeff Umbro: Joe Cilio, CEO of Forever Dog

[00:14:35] Joseph Cilio: What gives me the most optimism is the death of this phase of podcasting. I am so tired of being small potatoes in the larger entertainment industry, even though we carry so much cultural weight. And though all this corporate consolidation has been disruptive as hell, and though video has been, like, onerous on all of our, like, pocketbooks, and the industry upheaval is, like, endless, and I don't like any of that.

[00:15:01] Joseph Cilio: It's been awful. But what I am excited for is at least podcasting can break out of its little cocoon and turn into new media, and we can leave podcasting behind

[00:15:17] Jeff Umbro: Next up is Laura Mayer, author of Try Hard

[00:15:21] Laura Mayer: The podcast industry is giving me optimism because people, I think, finally accept that podcasts are here to stay. Yes, it did take video to do that, which is a different medium. However, I think it's now, like, a job you can have, and people aren't like, "Oh, that's a real job?" So that's good for me personally, selfishly.

[00:15:43] Laura Mayer: They're here to stay.

[00:15:45] Bryan Barletta: I'm Bryan Barletta, founder of Sounds Profitable and president of Podcast Movement. So what gives me the most optimism going into twenty twenty-seven is the massive number of jobs available in podcasting. I have had the good fortune of working in this space now for ten years, running Sounds Profitable for six years, and now Podcast Movement for one year.

[00:16:06] Bryan Barletta: And we have had some massive ups and downs. We have gone through so many changes where podcasting was an afterthought, where someone got a few extra hours a week to work on, where it was massively inflated salaries and wild layoffs and all of that. And right now feels like one of the strongest times to get a job in podcasting, maybe on the production side, maybe on the business side.

[00:16:29] Bryan Barletta: But it's going to allow you to get your feet into a community and industry that is really motivated to help people achieve their goals. And I've gotta say, comparing to things that I'm seeing in the YouTube and influencer and other creator spaces, it pays pretty well

[00:16:44] Jeff Umbro: Adam McNeill, Senior Vice President of ADOPTER Media

[00:16:48] Adam McNeil: We are in a fun landscape right now in podcasting where I think it's harder now to find performance out of podcast buys than it ever was before, and that makes it fun for me because it means that if you're good at what you do, you can stand out a lot more. With the changes happening on YouTube regarding public view counts versus engaged views, with a lack of definitions being clear on measurement, and, uh, accords being formed like the AMP accords, there's a clear need for expertise.

[00:17:17] Adam McNeil: And I've been in this industry longer than maybe some people that are new to it, and so I've-- I have a bedrock or a moat of expertise on how to buy podcast ads. And so for me, selfishly, I feel that, and I go, "Oh, this is great for my business and my expertise and my authority in this space." But on the flip side, it's also the thing that concerns me the most.

[00:17:35] Adam McNeil: Uh, we as an industry can't depend on expertise to, to grow and scale. We need to be able to build systems and models in which people with little to no experience can come in and have a successful venture in podcast advertising. It's important that brands don't get burned. If the story is that a brand comes into podcast advertising and spends foolishly, they leave, and they tell all their brand friends that this isn't a channel worth advertising on, that's a net negative for our industry.

[00:18:00] Adam McNeil: That's a net negative for you and for me and for the creators abroad

[00:18:04] Jeff Umbro: Ainsley Rossitto, head of podcasts at Beehivv

[00:18:08] Ainsley Rossitto: Yeah, I mean, I think what gives me the most optimism is that more podcasters are thinking about their business around their show. They wanna figure out ways to build a direct relationship with the people listening. They're thinking about new ways of how to keep them coming back, adding things like a newsletter or a subscription, which not only give them ways to deepen that relationship, but also expand their revenue and not be so reliant on apps and platforms to manage that relationship for them.

[00:18:36] Ainsley Rossitto: I think generally we'll start putting more weight on audience value and, and retention as key metrics alongside downloads. And so I'm excited about that, and I'm excited about some emerging tools that are gonna make it easier for podcasters to connect all those pieces. We know creators already have a- enough work to do.

[00:18:54] Alexia Bedat: Hi, I'm Alexia Bedat. I'm a partner at Klaris. I'm an attorney. I work with podcast production companies and creators on all of their deals. Going into 2027, I'm interested to see, and I think we're gonna see more of different maybe quasi-corporate structures for how parties collaborate in the podcast space.

[00:19:20] Alexia Bedat: And what I mean by that is I've been seeing this, been working on a couple of these already this year, and I think they're gonna pop up more, which is where a financier and a creator get together, and rather than doing a standard co-production agreement or production services agreement, they actually set up an LLC together, and the financing individual finances the LLC, and they do all of their work together through it.

[00:19:47] Alexia Bedat: And instead of specifying how every revenue stream is shared like you do in a co-production agreement, all of the revenue that flows through the work the LLC does or the company, if it's a different structure, does, runs through this corporate structure and is then split based on however the two parties have decided that they split ownership interests in the company overall.

[00:20:09] Alexia Bedat: So it's an interesting vehicle because it avoids having to split different revenue streams and call out everything. And I think that makes sense with trends we've been seeing, which is, one, a podcast deal is a deal between two people where the podcast is one of the things they're doing, but they're doing so many other things, live events, merchandise, community, subscription offerings, and all of those things need to be carved out very clearly.

[00:20:32] Alexia Bedat: So it sort of avoids that. And two, we've also seen a lot more of private, either wealthy individuals or family offices that are investing in the media space, investing in a creator or an author or somebody whose voice they believe in or is mission aligned with their beliefs, and doing it through this l- you know, company that they create together and invest in is also works nicely with that trend.

[00:20:57] Alexia Bedat: So I'm keeping my eyes open for that.

[00:21:01] Jeff Umbro: Sharon Taylor, CRO at Triton Digital

[00:21:04] Sharon Taylor: I'm usually a very glass half empty kind of person, but I was just at Advertising Week this week, and I did a panel with a few pretty smart people, and they were all buoyed by the dollars that had come through so far. Like, at the start of the year, the IB predicted that we would hit almost ten percent growth in revenue.

[00:21:23] Sharon Taylor: And when I asked them that question, they didn't give a number, uh, but they were very, um, complimentary about the number that had, like, come through so far. And so I feel like the most optimistic I am is because others in the space are echoing what it is that we see, which is, like, the dollars that are flowing.

[00:21:42] Sharon Taylor: Like, I think podcasting is kind of... hasn't reached full mainstream, but it's gotten the scale without losing any of the trust that I think was so powerful and is so powerful in podcasting. And so, I don't know, record growth in twenty twenty-six and knowing that that's gonna grow again in double digits next year is probably the most optimistic point that I could bring.

[00:22:04] Cathy Csukas: Hi, I'm Cathy Csukas, CEO of AdLarge and the founder of the fwd. network. What gives me the most optimism heading into twenty twenty-seven is just how much bigger the business of podcasting is becoming. Over the past year, we've seen omni-channel move from a strategy we've been talking about to something that's really taking shape.

[00:22:24] Cathy Csukas: As creators and their audiences expand across audio, video, social, and other platforms, we're no longer competing for just podcast advertising dollars. We're beginning to tap into broader advertising budgets, attract new brands, and open up entirely new revenue streams. The opportunity has never been bigger, but neither has the pressure to evolve.

[00:22:47] Eric Nuzum: My name is Eric Nuzum. I'm the co-founder of Magnificent Noise, which is a production and consulting company based in New York City. And what am I optimistic about? Boy, that's a great question because I think I spend a lot of my time trying to find the holes in things rather than the... finding the darkness in things rather than the light.

[00:23:08] Eric Nuzum: Uh, and I think the light for me is that I believe that twenty twenty-seven will be the year that more people realize that there isn't one path to success in podcasting, that for years people have been basically being able to duplicate what others do and figure they would have similar results. And I think podcasting has grown and diversified to the point where that really doesn't hold.

[00:23:39] Eric Nuzum: There, there are many best practices that work across almost any podcast. There are many opportunities that many podcasters can get. But when I look around the podcast industry now, I see lots of people having success, and they're doing it by not necessarily following the rules. And, uh, when I say that, I mean that there's a prescribed way to make money, there's a prescribed way to build an audience, there's a prescribed way to have the impact and i-influence that you want your podcast to have.

[00:24:10] Eric Nuzum: And when I look at it, I see people who are, like, surprisingly successful. I see lots of examples of where they kind of follow the rules, but then they kind of found their own way to do things that matches them and their project and their audience. And I think that's the pathway, and I think more and more people are gonna embrace that in twenty twenty-seven because you're seeing more and more examples of people who are not getting mega deals finding ways to be successful.

[00:24:39] Eric Nuzum: What scares me about the industry in twenty twenty-seven really is video. And I don't mean that video is all smoke and mirrors or the emperor's new clothes, because I think video is a very powerful development inside of podcasting. The problem is, is I think everybody is misunderstanding it, or many people are misunderstanding it.

[00:25:03] Eric Nuzum: And they see the actions of others, and they're like lemmings. They just kind of just do what those people are doing. And there's no asking why. Why? Why are we doing this? What are we trying to achieve?

[00:25:15] Jeff Umbro: Jerry Kolber, co-founder of Atomic Entertainment

[00:25:19] Jerry Kolber: The thing that gives me the most optimism is, is the part that really hasn't changed, which is that the, the best thing about podcasting is that we come here to engage people, we come to tell stories. Um, in our case, our company tends to always wanna try to help people see things in a different way, uh, in a more positive way.

[00:25:37] Jerry Kolber: And so, you know, that works on any platform. It works especially well in audio because it's such an intimate medium. Um, and it's an opportunity for people to really engage with you without the distraction of video, although obviously there's, you know, video, video podcasts now that are becoming, uh, q- quite a big part of things.

[00:25:57] Jerry Kolber: Um, but to me, those are the, those, those are the things to be optimistic about, is that people are listening, people still wanna engage, and people still wanna connect with other people in a meaningful way. Um, and everything else to me is a, is a delivery mechanism

[00:26:12] Jeff Umbro: And next up is podcast legend Lex Friedman

[00:26:15] Lex Friedman: Well, we'll start with the positive side 'cause that's more fun. Uh, and there's two things that I think give me a ton of optimism looking ahead to podcasting's future. Uh, the first is that I think people still really love listening. Um, you know, I think a lot about the fact that we are really trained to want to enjoy things on demand all the time whenever we want.

[00:26:32] Lex Friedman: Uh, and there's negative versions of that, like endless doom scrolling, but I think that podcasts are a really positive part of that. Uh, yes, it's maybe there's some sickness to this idea that we always wanna be entertained when we're in our car or doing chores or doing a workout, like you wanna have something to listen to.

[00:26:47] Lex Friedman: Uh, but the fact that there are all these stories to hear and interesting podcasts to listen to I think is really compelling, and the fact that so many listeners are eager for ever more stuff to listen to is great. Uh, for years, the stats were always like, you know, uh, maybe 10 years ago, the average podcast listener listens to two podcasts a week, and then the next year it was they listen to three podcasts a week, and the next year it was four podcasts a week, and this is a pretty good pattern.

[00:27:09] Lex Friedman: Uh, once you get into the habit of listening to stuff, you wanna keep listening to stuff because it's really fun and exciting to be informed and delighted and find insights and all that sort of thing. So I love the audience side, that we're-- we have an insatiable appetite to hear more cool stuff. And the other piece of that is on the creative side, uh, I think there's...

[00:27:27] Lex Friedman: there was reason to have fear in the early days of the internet, that if everybody was, you know, for example, publishing blogs nonstop all the time, uh, that we'd run out of things to say. Like, if everybody's talking all the time, then there's-- is there anything really interesting to listen to or to read?

[00:27:40] Lex Friedman: Uh, and it turned out that that was the case, right? The, the cream rose to the top, and there were people writing really interesting things, and there still are people writing really interesting things. I think the same thing is true in podcasting. When everybody could have a podcast, when it was really simple and a low barrier to entry, when there was no gatekeeping for the medium, I think there was a reasonable reason to have, uh, anxiety about what that would mean for the space.

[00:27:58] Lex Friedman: Like, is-- will everything be good? No, not everything's good, but it still means that there are really good things, and those rise to the top, too. So I think the, the piece that I have-- that has me most excited about the future is, uh, listeners are hungry for ever more cool stuff to listen to, and creators are hungry for ever more cool stories to tell in different formats.

[00:28:17] Jeff Umbro: Amanda McLoughlin, founder and CEO of Multitude

[00:28:21] Amanda McLoughlin: I've always seen podcasting as a part of the broader digital economy of the creator economy of the digital media landscape. And I think that we're speed running in a lot of the ways, a lot of the challenges, and also trends and highs and lows that industries like online video and reader-supported publications have been facing in the last several years.

[00:28:40] Amanda McLoughlin: We are learning things like how to use a new tool or a new trend, like online video, in ways that make sense for us and to leave it behind when it doesn't. So I am really optimistic that we will be able to maybe learn a little bit from the, the folks that have come before us and decide what makes sense for us to be sustainable, to grow strong communities, and to hold onto what makes podcasting so special, while also being nimble and bringing ourselves into this new era of our medium

[00:29:14] Jeff Umbro: Eve Troeh, executive producer of Masters of Scale, taking the place of Leital Molad, who's now at the Wall Street Journal

[00:29:21] Eve Troeh: What gives me the most optimism about podcasting in 2027 is that people love and continue to love podcasts. More people continue to find and love podcasts, and there are more podcasts to find. Some people see this as an issue of overcrowding. Are there too many podcasts? Is it oversaturated? I say no, absolutely not.

[00:29:43] Eve Troeh: There's so much talent out there. There's so much audience demand for podcasts to spend time with, to inform them, to be companions as they go about their daily lives and seek information, entertainment, and those parasocial relationships with those excellent hosts that we know are so strong and so connective and so important, frankly, in media today

[00:30:03] Jeff Umbro: Eric Barnett, Vice President of Revenue at Supporting Cast

[00:30:07] Eric Barnett: Yeah, we'll start with sort of like what I'm most optimistic about. It's kind of a weird one to say. I guess it's maybe a little, I, I don't know if altruistic is the right word or not, but I, I like the fact that podcasting is still kind of weird, to be honest, like, just to put it bluntly. Like, there's a lot of consolidation that's happening in the industry in podcasting as a whole or just maybe media in general.

[00:30:27] Eric Barnett: But I think podcasting has, uh, in general proven to be pretty resilient when it comes to having like a diverse and sort of thriving landscape. And I don't know, that makes me very happy to see that there's new shows that are continuing to happen all the time, both small shows, big shows, video shows, niche audiences.

[00:30:44] Eric Barnett: Like, there's all these different things that are continuing to come out, and I just think that's very healthy, and that's something that makes me happy to see. So, you know, and the older shows are continuing to carry audiences, but yeah, I would say it makes me optimistic that podcasting has continued to be weird after all these years, and I, I believe that'll carry on for a long time

[00:31:02] Jeff Umbro: Next up is Lynn Kestin Sessler, head of production and development at Show and Tell Productions

[00:31:08] Lynn Kestin Sessler: What gives me the most optimism is that I work primarily in the kids and family space, and parents and kids need content. And parents, more than ever, are looking for good content, quality content. So I think that as the pendulum is swinging away, like, towards AI, but also away from AI, I think parents are looking for screen-free and also good quality stuff for their kids.

[00:31:42] Lynn Kestin Sessler: Um, they don't want their kids just lost in the abandonment of just listening to the junk that can be found out in the world. They need and want, um, good night stuff that works for them. They need stuff that's important for them to have in the car. You know, when they take those long trips to grandma's house or school, they need some help.

[00:32:06] Lynn Kestin Sessler: And so there are so many wonderful options and so many great people now in the kids and audio space that are gonna give them those options. So that gives me great hope that families are believing in this and wanting this, and we're gonna give it to them.

[00:32:26] Mia Lobel: I am Mia Lobel. I'm the EP of podcasts for Slate.

[00:32:31] Mia Lobel: And what gives me the most optimism going into 2027 is the creative energy around making it work in this ever-changing industry. What that looks like is longtime audio producers teaching themselves video editing. It means hosts brushing their hair and putting on their faces to show up on YouTube and learning a whole new way of speaking to audiences.

[00:32:54] Mia Lobel: It means creative partnerships between podcast shops and independent creators, and everyone being willing to think differently about what they need to do to make their projects work. What scares me is the lack of control creators have over their own listener and viewership on the platforms we rely on for distribution.

[00:33:14] Mia Lobel: I want to believe those platforms have the creators' and journalists' best interests in mind, but what they consider to be small tweaks to their systems can have a big impact on us. I also worry that trust in established institutions is falling and that journalists have to work harder than ever to gain the trust of their readers, listeners, and viewers.

[00:33:35] Mia Lobel: But I also see journalists making amazing strides and adapting to new ways of reaching people.

[00:33:41] Bikram Chatterji: Hey, I'm Bikram Chatterji. I'm the CEO at Maximum Fun. We've been in the podcast game since 2005, and I've been in it for about 10 years. This is a whole ball of things. Things are often a whole ball of things.

[00:33:55] Bikram Chatterji: For me, people ever since I started in the business have been talking about, "Oh, we got to professionalize podcasting. We got to take it from out of people's basement studios and make it big and make it grand and make it something that is a real entertainment business." And, you know, year by year by year, Conan appears on, on, uh, the cover of Variety.

[00:34:19] Bikram Chatterji: All sorts of things are stepping in that direction where what people really mean by that is, "Oh, we got to make this thing that we don't fully understand look more like the entertainment business that we really do understand." And so one way I look at 2026 is that we've reached the apotheosis of that, that it's like, okay, we now have podcasts that are on Netflix next to first-run movies, next to studio productions, next to Bridgerton.

[00:34:54] Bikram Chatterji: Podcasting is professionalized now. We've, we've achieved that goal. And another way of thinking of that is, okay, like we've made the thing that was a little bit of a black sheep look like everything else. So for me, uh, I didn't get into podcasting to look like everything else. Um, I did not... But I think that the value of the industry and the value of the medium is that it's so creator-focused, that it is so creator-driven, and that it does not require all of the infrastructure that comes with, um, larger entertainment.

[00:35:33] Bikram Chatterji: And so What I would love to see in the following year is that we could sort of declare mission accomplished on, on professionalization, and we could say, for me, the need that the, that the podcasts were meeting in 2014 and 2015 and 2016 has not disappeared. The thing that they were speaking to back then has not disappeared.

[00:35:58] Bikram Chatterji: Obviously, audiences change and, and preferences have changed. But the fact of what a podcast is and what it was in the mid-2010s is it's a way of somebody who is-- feels passionate about something, who really, um, wants to create a community around it and build a community around it. It's a way for them to do that and for them to do that in ways that they understand and to, and, and to do it in ways that don't require a whole bunch of investment and infrastructure.

[00:36:32] Bikram Chatterji: It's a real pure form of artistic creation. And I believe that there's still a need for that. I, I believe that it's really hard to navigate that within, you know, a podcast, uh, studio system. Um, and those are the types of creators that we like to empower at Maximum Fun, and that's the type of work that we like to do.

[00:36:56] Bikram Chatterji: And so my optimism for next year is that we can start to believe that we've reached a natural endpoint for this push for professionalization and that the industry as a whole can focus on, oh, like what is special about us? What do we do that nobody else can do? And we can pay some more attention to that

[00:37:21] Jeff Umbro: And now here's everyone's favorite podcast of 2026

[00:37:24] Rox Codes: My favorite show this year was, of course, The Pod News Daily. Shout out James Cridland. I listen every single day.

[00:37:30] Justin McGoldrick: My favorite podcast of 2026 is Our Town by Bloomberg, and it is four-part limited series about a small town disrupted by people with potentially nefarious goals moving to that town and looking to change the DNA of the community.

[00:37:53] Libby Absten: My favorite podcast of 2026 is a Podcast Nation show, of course, called Petty Crimes. It is led by two of our amazing hosts, Sierra and Griff, and it is a comedy-leading show. It's so much fun listening to it. They've done a ton of live shows in 2026, and hopefully more in 2027, but they're just awesome.

[00:38:14] Tom Webster: What was my favorite podcast of 2026? I am a very big fan of, uh, Derek Thompson and Derek Thompson's show, Plain English.

[00:38:23] Fatima Zaidi: My favorite podcast of 2026 is called Reaching Out, which won the Audio Memoir Award at the Tribeca Festival.

[00:38:31] Chris Peterson: My favorite podcast of 2026, it's nothing new, it's nothing original, but it's Chicken Soup for the Soul.

[00:38:40] Chris Peterson: It's the Bill Simmons Podcast, always will be. I love it. Um, and I think Bill has been hitting his apex mountain, uh, this year especially.

[00:38:48] Odile Beniflah: Actually, I have many favorite. I would call the one that's Traveling with AAA. Each time I listen, I learn something new about a place or country. It's immersive. You feel like you're right there, and it's just perfect for audio.

[00:39:01] Odile Beniflah: I also love Everybody Knows But Me. It's hilarious, tragic, and real, and about family secrets that everybody can relate to. I can't say more.

[00:39:12] Dusty Weis: My favorite podcast of 2026 is gonna come down to a tie photo finish between Cardiac Cowboys, uh, which was incredible, but it also got my wife excited about podcasting, which isn't always something that happens, and then the 30 for 30 by ESPN entitled The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani.

[00:39:32] Richard Fawal: My favorite podcast of 2026, I actually have two. One is a podcast that we made, um, is... I'm super proud of it. It's called Amended: Liberty's Guide to the First Amendment. I think it was timely and interesting and funny and entertaining. But for me, the podcast that I really discovered and really got into this year was, uh, Ologies with Alie Ward.

[00:39:54] Joseph Cilio: My favorite podcast of 2026, going strong 10 years plus now, The Rights to Ricky Sanchez, uh, Sixers podcast. It's a, not only is it fun 'cause I love the Sixers, it's a brilliant piece of broadcasting. It's a brilliant piece of community development, um, of community retention, of expanding your brand into all sorts of exciting things.

[00:40:25] Joseph Cilio: I've been listening to this podcast for a decade. It's about the basketball team, the Philadelphia 76ers.

[00:40:30] Laura Mayer: My favorite podcast of 2026 was the most recent season of Death of an Artist, uh, by Leon Neyfakh. Really loved it. It has one of the most effective uses of, um, archival personal tape to open a series that I've ever heard.

[00:40:47] Bryan Barletta: My favorite podcast of 2026 was the fifth season of Midnight Burger, and I will admit that I've re-listened to that show, the entirety of it, which is five full seasons, and I think three or four, like, secondary seasons that they have that they built in there. I've listened to the whole series twice this year.

[00:41:08] Adam McNeil: My favorite podcast is a podcast created by two of my friends here in Calgary. It's called Rooked: The Cheater's Gambit, and it is a podcast, uh, about a famous chess scandal. And I've been recently getting into chess again, and so I re-listened to some of the show, and I'm getting back into it and enjoying playing the game.

[00:41:26] Ainsley Rossitto: My favorite podcast of 2026 is a new one that just came out called Woman in the Woods by Erin Moriarty from 48 Hours. It's one of the six-part investigative series, and she gets into the, the case of Mindy Kis lotus. So check it out. Um, it's a good one if you wanna sink your teeth into a mystery.

[00:41:44] Alexia Bedat: My favorite podcast in 2026 is the same as it is every year.

[00:41:50] Alexia Bedat: It's always the same answer because I'm a total entertainment news junkie, is The Town.

[00:41:55] Sharon Taylor: My favorite podcast of 2026 was The Town. Highly recommend for anyone, especially in this industry, if you're watching this. It was amazing.

[00:42:03] Lex Friedman: My favorite podcasts of 2026 were The Word Association and Heavyweight.

[00:42:08] Amanda McLoughlin: My favorite podcast of 2026 has been A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein.

[00:42:12] Amanda McLoughlin: When I'm feeling overwhelmed by the news and I want, like, a trusted friend's perspective to help me understand the context and kind of broader world behind headlines that I'm seeing.

[00:42:22] Eve Troeh: One of my favorite podcasts of 2026 is the series Shell Game. It is a surprisingly hilarious look at AI and what happens when one man, one journalist, sets out to start a company with just one person, himself, and use AI for all the other roles of the company, including the CEO, marketing, personnel, everything.

[00:42:46] Eve Troeh: And hearing these AI agents as characters is just so surprisingly deep and hilarious. Evan Ratliff, Shell Game, so, so good. Such a good listen and such a, like, deep interesting way to look at the issue of, of AI.

[00:43:02] Eric Barnett: My favorite podcast of 2026 was No Such Thing, which is a podcast about good friends who settle arguments, dumb arguments, by actually doing the research.

[00:43:12] Eric Barnett: Um, and I just find it to be a very down to earth and insightful podcast that I really enjoy.

[00:43:17] Lynn Kestin Sessler: My favorite podcast for 2026 was Happier in Hollywood. It's been my favorite podcast, really, Happier and Happier in Hollywood, its sister podcast, for the last few years. Liz and Sarah are just so fun, upbeat, inspirational, and also real about the challenges of working in this crazy business, the entertainment business.

[00:43:45] Lynn Kestin Sessler: I appreciate their Hollywood hacks, their life hacks that they give. They find the joy in everyday moments as a mom, as a friend, as a working professional who's just trying to make it, and I really appreciate them, and one day I hope to work with them

[00:44:11] Jeff Umbro: For more podcast-related news, info, and takes, you can follow me on LinkedIn at Jeff Umbro. Podcast Perspectives is a production of the Podglomerate. If you're looking for help producing, marketing, or monetizing your podcast, you can find us at podglomerate.com. Shoot us an email at listen@thepodglomerate.com or follow us on all socials @podglomeratepods. This episode was produced by myself, Jeff Umbro, and our production team, Chris Boniello, Jose Roman, Nicholas Abouhamad, and Kaely Monahan. I'd also like to thank our marketing team, and special thank you to Dan Christo.