This Week’s Influencer: Dallas Taylor Gets Honest About Creative Priorities; Indie PaC Winners You Should Test; TikTok Podcasts Coming; and More…

How does an audiophile thrive in the era of YouTube? How can two circles solve everything? Find out in the first video podcast of Ad Infinitum, featuring the legendary sonic sage Dallas Taylor!

That’s right, the world’s only podcast solely dedicated to audio ads is back, now in video! Today, we present to you Ad Infinitum Season 4, Episode 1: “Two Circles: Dallas Taylor on Podcasting, YouTube, and Creative Identity.”

Host Stew Redwine (Executive Creative Director, Oxford Road) welcomes award-winning sonic guide Dallas Taylor (Host, Twenty Thousand Hertz, and Founder, Defacto Sound) to Headgum Studios for a creative masterclass about achieving great work time and time again.

Stew and Dallas talk: Why the Audience Comes Last, Two Circles, Going Off the Rails, and more. Let’s dig in…

“ I’ve always been a sound designer. I’ve been somebody who wanted to craft and create and celebrate sound, then I use the tools around me to tell everybody about how cool this is. I don’t really have any emotional or identity in the tools. That’s why I don’t say I’m a podcaster.” – Dallas Taylor (Host, Twenty Thousand Hertz, and Founder Defacto Sound)

“The Audience Comes Last” – This Rick Rubin quote brings clarity to all creative work, including for your brand. Take Dallas’s starting place for a project: who he is and what he cares about. If you want to make anything new, anything that will stand out (and marketers, yes, you do), you can’t start with what the audience is asking for. Instead, you need to start with your identity and passions. Then, when you’ve made something to the best of your abilities, see how the audience responds.

Two Circles – 7 months ago, two circles made Dallas believe he’d have to shut down his decade-old podcast. The first was a small circle containing audio-podcast listeners who could love the distinctly sonic Twenty Thousand Hertz. The second, a multi-billion-person circle of TikTok, IG, and YouTube audiences, reachable only via video. But after a chat with Stew and sage James Ingrassia, Dallas saw that he could have both. He drew two new circles: Mindset (how to get on board with the shift) and Workflow (how to do the work). The result? Distinct video stories about audio that complement the podcast, a growing fanbase, and using the available tools to celebrate audio. Again, start with what matters to you and track the audience response.

Go Off the Rails – How do you make great creative work? Build a trusted process… and be ready to abandon it when need be. At the mix stage of Pluribus, Dallas heard stories of Vince Gilligan asking for everyone’s opinions. He invited new elements that could challenge and disrupt what he believed. The lesson? Build a track, get derailed by the unexpected, then integrate the new pieces into your journey. (Kind of like how the best podcast ads come from ad libs, not copy points. #SaveTheLiveReads)

Want more insights on unlocking creativity again and again from two champions of audio creativity? Tune in to the full episode here:

The Classifieds

This Rogue Indie is Your Perfect Campaign Companion

Network: SiriusXM Media / Monthly Downloads: 500k

This week’s Classified section is a tribute to some of our recent winners at the inaugural Indie PaC Awards. Our first winner has been featured three times already in our ORBIT rankings, which helped them solidify the ‘Highest Impact‘ award Sunday night. Tabletop Role-Playing games have been seeing a rise in popularity as of late, from video games like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 (yes, this game is based on a tabletop game of the same name) bringing the genre into the forefront of the industry, while movies like the Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves brought the allure of dice-based campaigns to the silver screen.

Before that, people like prominent voice actor Matt Mercer paved the way for D&D campaigns to become mainstream entertainment. He and his wife, fellow VO Marisha Ray, assembled their highly talented group of friends to gather around a table each week, cracking jokes and skulls along the way. They have spent the last 11 years cultivating a highly engaged and very supportive community, which has led to their show performing well for a variety of advertisers here at Oxford Road. If you’re looking for a critical success, roll that D20 via the link below.
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Get The Deal

These Startups Bring In Big Business Performance

Network: The Launch Partnership / Monthly Downloads: 250k

Our second winner of the week is so passionate about indie businesses that he not only has an entire show devoted to highlighting them, but also a network! Jason Calacanis, the host of This Week In Startups, and our winner for ‘Best Independent Business & Entrepreneurship’ podcast, loves startups. He has spent the last 16 years highlighting the best advice for those looking to take the business world by storm, even though they’re just starting out. He has also built his network, The Launch Partnership, to co-defy this mission, and the list of companies that they have sponsored on their road to success is truly astounding.

Calacanis isn’t just talk; he has been a key part of brands like Uber and Calm through his work as an “angel investor.” His advice is worth millions, yet he willingly gives it away to anyone who will listen each week on his podcast. This show is great not only for brands looking to reach business-minded individuals, but also for those who find that their messaging relates well to self-starters and the highly motivated crowd. If you’re ready to add this surefire investment to your test plans, start by clicking the link below.

Get The Deal

In Case You Missed It

Edison Dials to Infinity and Beyond for 2026 Insights

Edison Research’s Infinite Dial 2026 shows that podcasting and online audio are continuing to move further into the mainstream. Monthly podcast reach climbed to 58% of Americans, 12+, weekly reach hit 45%, and 57% now say they both listen to and watch podcasts. In-car podcast usage continues to rise, and adults 55+ are helping drive the growth of online audio. The podcasting tent keeps getting bigger, which is good news for marketers, but it also means podcast planning is becoming more nuanced. Growth among the 55+ demo is a reminder that podcasting is no longer just a younger-skewing play, and that matters when older consumers often have more disposable income.

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Podcasting Manages to Sustain a Year-Over-Year Bump

A new FMR Associates/Eastlan Ratings survey suggests podcast listening did not fall back after the election cycle. Weekly podcast listening among adults 25–64 held at 40%, up sharply from 24% in 2024 and roughly in line with 2025 levels. The election bump for podcasting stuck. The other real takeaway from this survey is video: YouTube leads, as expected, but Instagram and TikTok are showing up next, even at just 10%, suggesting social platforms may be better positioned than Netflix or Spotify to win share of video podcast consumption.

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Creator Spend Projected to Hit $21B

eMarketer projects U.S. creator spend will reach $21 billion in 2026, nearly double 2022 levels, with nano and micro influencers accounting for about half of that spend. But the economics are getting tougher: distribution is becoming more expensive, organic reach is weakening, and marketers are increasingly relying on paid support to make creator-led content work. The creator economy is still growing, but it is increasingly looking like paid media. If podcasts are working for your brand, the broader creator economy is an obvious extension, especially for social-first audiences. Creator spend is already larger than audio combined, which tells you how big the opportunity has become.

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#SaveTheLiveReads

It’s Time to Amp Up Your Spring Decor with Wayfair

This week’s #STLR is for anyone thinking about a Spring refresh but unsure where to start. Up and Adam!’s Adam Newell delivers a standout Wayfair read, opening with a forward-looking hook about upgrading your space for 2026 that immediately sets an aspirational yet approachable tone. He blends brand messaging with a personal glimpse into life with his husband, Jason, creating a vivid and inviting entry point into redecorating.

The read keeps strong momentum, balancing humor, honesty, and utility. Key benefits like style, selection, budget flexibility, reviews, filters, and assembly services are woven in seamlessly, building cleanly to a compelling call to action. The result is a masterclass in host reads: engaging, relatable, and persuasive without feeling forced.

If you are looking to elevate your own reads, this one is worth studying.

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OXFORd In The News

The First-Ever Indie PaC Awards Just Crowned Independent Podcasting and Creator Media’s Best. See Who Took Home Hardware.

We threw our first-ever awards show at SXSW, and Killer Mike hosted it. Yeah, that happened.

The inaugural Indie PaC Awards celebrated the independent podcasters and creators who built this medium from scratch. No network, no safety net, just talent and an audience that showed up. Winners were chosen using our ORBIT performance data and an independent jury of industry heavyweights, so the hardware actually meant something.

Steven Bartlett swept the night, taking home both ‘Best Independent Interview Show’ and ‘Independent Creator of the Year’ for The Diary of a CEO. Tim Ferriss earned the ‘Oxford Prize in Podcasting’ and used his moment on stage to recognize the other creators in the room who shaped his journey. Hala Taha spoke about betting on herself when nobody else would.

The whole night was a reminder of why creator media hits differently. These aren’t anchors reading from a teleprompter. They’re people who built something real, and advertisers who get that are winning because of it.

Year one is done. Year two is already on our minds. Full list of winners at indiepac.com.