PodBiz | Where's The Money In Podcasting?

Is programmatic advertising really just an automated machine, or does the real money in podcasting come down to relationships? In this episode of PodBiz, Norma Jean Belenky and John Kiernan speak with Rebecca Dalby, VP of Demand at Triton Digital, about the nuances of programmatic audio and monetization. Rebecca shares her journey from fast-moving consumer goods to the podcasting industry, detaili...

Can independent podcasters compete without millions of downloads? Liam Heffernan thinks they can, but only if they stop treating downloads as the whole story. As Founder and CEO of Mercury Podcast Network, Liam has built a business around supporting the independent shows that often get overlooked by larger networks. For him, the opportunity in podcasting is not just about scale. It is about helpin...

What happens when a YouTube creator mindset collides with traditional podcasting? For Stella Young, the answer is a completely different way of thinking about audience growth, monetization, and ownership. As the founder of Tiny Legends and co-host of This Is TV Now alongside Dane Cardiel, Stella entered podcasting after years in the YouTube ecosystem. What she found was an industry that often view...

How do you build a podcast business that's truly your own? After leadership roles at NPR, Apple, Netflix, Wondery, and Amazon, N'Jeri Eaton made a decision that more podcast professionals are considering: stop building for someone else's platform and start building something you own. In this episode of PodBiz, Norma Jean Belenky speaks with N'Jeri about creator ownership, independent production, a...

How do you build the infrastructure for a podcast market that's about to become larger than the United States? For years, podcast industry conversations have largely centered around English-speaking markets. But according to Rodrigo Tigre, President and Co-Founder of Ozen.fm, the next major growth story may come from somewhere else entirely. Rodrigo has spent more than two decades working in digit...

How can a membership model transform your podcast from an unpredictable hobby into a recurring revenue stream? In this episode of PodBiz, Norma Jean Belenky and John Kiernan speak with Joe Fucigna, a creator membership specialist, about the power of direct-to-fan monetization models. Joe shares how he helps podcasters transition away from unpredictable advertising cycles to build thriving communit...

How do podcast publishers actually know what inventory they can sell? According to Sean Howard, most of the industry historically hasn’t. In this episode of PodBiz, Sean Howard, founder and CEO of Flightpath and co-founder of Fable and Folly, breaks down one of the biggest operational problems in podcast advertising: forecasting ad delivery in a medium built around unpredictable audience behavior....

How do you measure the value of a podcast when the industry still can’t fully agree on what counts as a listener? Tom Webster has spent decades helping the audio industry answer exactly that question. From traditional radio research to podcast analytics, audience behavior, and platform evolution, his work has shaped how podcasting understands itself and where it’s heading next. In this episode of...

How do you build a podcast business when your audience is highly specialized, deeply regulated, and incredibly difficult to reach? Dan Kendall has spent nearly a decade proving that small, focused podcast audiences can create outsized business value. As the founder of Health Podcast Library and creator of Digital Health Today, Dan built one of the earliest podcast ecosystems dedicated to healthcar...

If you don’t own your audience, are you actually building a business? This week on PodBiz, Michelle Jackson, founder of Creators Getting Paid , breaks down why most creators struggle to monetize and what’s actually required to turn a podcast into something sustainable. Her work sits at the intersection of independent creators, community building, and revenue transparency, giving her a clear view i...

If podcasting is growing, why is monetization still uneven and who actually captures the value? This week on PodBiz, Brendan Monaghan, CEO of Libsyn and former co-founder of Megaphone, breaks down podcasting from the platform layer: hosting, monetization, and the infrastructure shaping the industry behind the scenes. With experience spanning Spotify, Megaphone, and The Washington Post, Brendan bri...

How do you make money from podcasting when listeners are skipping ads? Sam Sethi has spent his career at the intersection of tech and media, from Microsoft and Netscape to co-founding TechCrunch. Now, as CEO of True Fans and co-host of Podcast Weekly Review, he’s focused on one thing: building direct relationships between creators and audiences. For Sam, the future of podcasting isn’t built on ads...

How do you turn a podcast into a system that actually drives revenue? Chris Stone has spent his career building audiences across legacy media and modern podcast ecosystems. From The Telegraph to the New Statesman, and now through Podcast Strategy Weekly and Podcast Crew, he’s focused on one thing: how content turns into trust, and how trust turns into business. “The money in podcasting… it depends...

What actually makes a podcast worth buying for advertisers? In this episode, Courtney O'Connor, Director of Podcast Media at Oxford Road, breaks down how brands actually evaluate, buy, and scale podcast campaigns. From her early start at Veritone One to now leading podcast strategy at one of the most established agencies in the space, Courtney has operated inside the shift from indie creator reads...

What if most of the money in podcasting isn’t in podcasting at all? In this episode, we’re joined by Jeremy Enns, founder of Podcast Marketing Academy, to break down where podcast revenue really comes from, and why so many shows miss it. Jeremy challenges the idea that growth is about tactics. Instead, he makes the case that concept, positioning, and packaging are the real drivers of audience and...

What does it actually take to build a media network inside a company like HubSpot? As Head of Media Partnerships at HubSpot Media Network, Carly Baker joined shortly after the acquisition of The Hustle and helped grow what started as a small collection of shows into a multi-platform media ecosystem spanning podcasts, YouTube, and newsletters. In this episode of PodBiz, Carly breaks down how HubSpo...

Is podcasting focusing on the wrong metrics? For years, the business conversation around podcasts has centered on CPMs, ad fill rates, and monetization mechanics. But Rox Codes believes the bigger opportunity lies somewhere else entirely: growth. Rox is the CEO and co-founder of Flightcast, a platform built with Steven Bartlett that brings YouTube-style analytics and experimentation into podcast p...

How do you reach the right audience inside a global industry? Victoria King Meyer has built a podcast that answers that question with clarity. As president of Progressio Global and host of The Chemical Show, she has created a platform that connects leaders across the chemical industry while expanding her reach beyond traditional trade media. In this episode of PodBiz, Victoria joins NJ to discuss...

If advertising is a billion-dollar market, where does that leave independent creators? In this episode of PodBiz, NJ sits down with Alberto Betella, co-founder of RSS.com, for a platform-level look at where revenue actually lives. Alberto’s answer begins with scale. Advertising remains the largest total addressable market in podcasting and continues to grow. But volume drives ad revenue. For small...

What if audience development doesn’t start at launch… but at concept? This week on PodBiz, we’re joined by Catrin Skaperdas, Marketing and Audience Development Director at The Podcast Guys, whose career spans Cumulus Media, independent consulting across European markets, and now building marketing infrastructure inside a growing UK agency. Catrin makes one thing clear: marketing is not an aftertho...

Where is the money in podcasting when you’re not chasing a big network buy? This week on PodBiz, NJ sits down with Matt Cundill (AKA Captain Canada), founder of Sound Off Media, longtime radio and podcast strategist to talk about what monetization really looks like for independent podcasters. Matt breaks down what he calls “small buckets of money” and why the biggest revenue often comes from one o...

This week on PodBiz, NJ sits down with Patrick Hill , Founder and CEO of Disctopia , to unpack where power, money, and influence are converging across podcasting, music, and creator platforms. Patrick brings a platform-level view of the industry. He explains why monetization is increasingly tied to access, subscriptions, and distribution control, how opinion-based media has become financially powe...

What does it actually take for an independent podcast to become partner-ready? This week on PodBiz, NJ speaks with Michael Osborne about how shows move from passion projects to major media partnerships and why that transition is almost never fast or accidental. Michael has built and produced multiple podcasts that successfully partnered with organizations like Smithsonian Magazine , PRX , and Wond...

What does sustainable monetization actually look like for independent podcasters today? This week on PodBiz, NJ speaks with Danielle Desir Corbett about how creators can build resilient podcast businesses by thinking beyond single revenue streams and treating their work as a portfolio. Danielle shares how her approach to monetization has evolved over time, why relying on one income source is risky...

What changes when podcasting moves from experimentation to infrastructure? This week on PodBiz, NJ speaks with Colin Anderson , Head of Network Development at the Office Ladies Podcast Network, about how podcasting has evolved into a serious commercial business and what that means for creators, networks, and advertisers operating at scale. Colin brings a perspective shaped by years inside podcast...