This Week's Influencer: AMP Officially Drops & The Industry Is Buzzing; Creator Video Hits 26% of TV Time; Podcast Targets Get Smarter; and More

Podcasting is an amazing medium, but the industry that supports it hasn’t always been inherently brand-friendly. Luckily, we have a chance to change that, thanks to the AMP Accords.

This week’s edition of Media Roundtable features an insightful conversation that originated on Podnews. Dan Granger (CEO & Founder, Oxford Road), Giles Martin (EVP, Strategy, Oxford Road), and James Cridland (Editor, Podnews & Podcast Business Journal) do a deep dive into how the AMP Accords can shape the industry, and explain why imperfect standards are an improvement over the wild west.

“Podcasting is truly the shining city on a hill as far as media goes, and we can’t get out of our own freaking way to not spike our customers’ tires when they drive into the parking lot.” – Dan Granger (CEO & Founder, Oxford Road)

In Pods We Trust –  Podcasting grew by getting direct-to-consumer advertisers to take a leap of faith with the measurement combination of a download and a promo code. The next phase of podcasting’s growth won’t happen until the industry becomes trustworthy and brand-friendly enough to entice global blue-chip CMOs to feel secure in campaign measurement accuracy. The AMP Accords’ recommendations of metrics and measurement can make that next evolution possible. These are the standards of trust the industry needs.

Don’t Leave Video Behind – Why do we need the AMP Accords? In the early days of podcasting, measurement was handled via pixels. But YouTube’s meteoric growth upended that practice. For the industry to take advantage of video without splitting podcasting in two, we need: 1) a podcast definition that includes video podcasts (but not all video); and 2) measurement and metric standards that work on any channel. The AMP Accords are our chance to unify and protect what makes this medium so strong, both creatively and financially.

“Good Enough” Is a Good Place to Start  – The AMP Accords aren’t perfect. Luckily, they don’t need to be. As Dan notes: “ There are different ways of achieving some of the objectives we’re trying to achieve, and at the end of the day, who cares what I think? What matters is that we have a standard that everybody can deal with.” It starts by getting the industry to agree to use 30-second plays instead of downloads, and to define a podcast as something you can listen to with your eyes closed. If we want podcasting to grow as a single industry and raise all ships, the AMP Accords are the standards that make these seas a bit friendlier for all travelers.

If you want to strengthen the industry, you can join the AMP Accords here.

While you’re at it, if you’re looking for a deeper dive into the AMP Accords, including hard questions from the always insightful James Cridland, check out the full episode below.

The Classifieds

The Quizard Commands You to Laugh and Learn, Lest You Be Thrown in the Pit

Network: Studio71 /  Episodic Downloads: 64k

Watcher Entertainment and the fine folks at Studio71 have come together to produce The Quizard’s Pit, the newest podcast for those who like to laugh while they learn. Shane Madej and Matt Real host each episode from the prison pit of the unseen Quizard, who forces them to discuss random bits of niche trivia and history, like Elvis’ love of fireworks, the phenomenon of actual raining cats and dogs, the fallacy of gecko regeneration, and more.

The show, which will remind some listeners of the cult-TV hit Mystery Science Theater 3000, combines shenanigan-heavy comedy with deeply researched, educational content. The Quizard’s Pit brings in an audience of curious listeners who believe knowledge and humor naturally go hand in hand. To join our heroes in the cavern below, meander to the link down yonder for more details.

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Grab Your Flashlights and Get Ready to Venture into the Woods

Network: AdLarge / Episodic Downloads: 40K

Stay alert! We’re going deep into uncharted territory for our second classified this week. Anchored in traditional oral history, Alone in the Woods tells tales about the outdoors and brings them inside our curious minds. Loyal listeners submit the scariest experiences they’ve had while camping or hiking, while host Darkness Prevails talks us through the unknown horrors that await us in the quiet of the night (and in the bright uncertainty of the day).

For those who are seeing performance in the true crime, fiction, or outdoors categories, this is a phenomenal testing opportunity. Since its premiere, Alone in the Woods has amassed a strong set of B2B core advertisers, particularly with a male-skewing audience of young professionals. You’re not alone in our neck of the woods, so follow the trail to our link to learn more.

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In Case You Missed It

The World Cup Highlights Players and Creators Alike

The 2026 World Cup showed how creators are not just becoming a bigger part of sports marketing, but also of the viewing experience itself. Brands used creators at very different scales this year, from massive network appearances to smaller groups built around access and relevance. The strongest examples suggest that cultural fit and real-time access matter more than sheer creator volume. The World Cup demonstrated that more creators do not automatically create more impact. Access and relevance are what make creator content matter. Marketers should be clear about whether they’re buying impressions, cultural participation, or a relationship with someone who genuinely belongs in the moment.

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Podcast Targeting Just Got a Lot More Precise, But Can it Scale?

Comscore is bringing transcript-level targeting and measurement to major podcast and audio platforms, including the likes of Acast, Libsyn, SiriusXM, Spotify, and Triton Digital. Their Proximic platform analyzes individual episodes for contextual relevance, brand safety, and suitability, giving advertisers more control than show-level categories alone. Show-level categories have always been a blunt way to understand podcast content, so episodic-level analysis is a meaningful improvement. But more precise targeting only matters if the classifications are accurate and actionable. And let’s be honest, unless marketers are mining back catalogs for impressions, episodic targeting is difficult to activate at scale.

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Creator Video Just Joined “TV” at the Adult Table

Creator content now accounts for 26% of the time consumers spend watching television and video, according to Media Dynamics data, cited by EMARKETER. That puts creator video alongside linear TV and streaming as a major part of the broader viewing landscape, especially among younger audiences. Creator content is no longer a niche behavior or an add-on to the media plan. Marketers can separate creator, social, and television into different budgets and teams, but consumers do not care about those boxes. If they experience creator content as television, then for planning purposes, it is television.

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#SaveTheLiveReads

Barcode Scanner Moment Makes Thrive Market Ad Unforgettable

Brooke Gittings, host of Cold Case Files, brings an effortlessly relatable approach to this week’s #STLR with a thoughtful endorsement for Thrive Market. Rather than pitching the service as another online grocery platform, Brooke walks listeners through the ways Thrive Market fits into her own routine and shares the pantry staples she consistently orders (which range from Chomps and Simple Mills crackers to Primal Kitchen sauces and Olipop). Those specific examples immediately make the recommendation feel authentic and grounded in everyday life.

The read really shines when Brooke explains how Thrive Market removes the stress of shopping for healthier products. Instead of spending time reading ingredient labels or researching additives, she highlights how the platform vets products in advance and shares how she used the barcode scanner to discover a cleaner alternative to products already sitting in her pantry. It’s a small but memorable moment that perfectly demonstrates the value of the service. By the end of the read, Thrive Market feels less like a grocery membership and more like a trusted shopping companion, making healthier choices feel simple, accessible, and worth coming back for.

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OXFORd In The News

AMP Accords Go Global & The Industry Is Paying Attention

Bloomberg led the coverage of Oxford Road’s AMP Accords release at the CAO Summit on July 23rd, framing it as a cross-industry effort to standardize what a podcast is and how ad exposure should be measured. The story rippled across The Wall Street Journal, Like & Subscribe, Signall Hill Insights, Amplifi Media, Radio Ink, Inside Radio, Podcast News Daily, Podnews, Podcasting Today, Podcast Business Journal,  Sounds Profitable, Roastbrief, Ads of Brands, and Substackers like Lia Haberman and Jose Antonio Gelado. Meanwhile, Adopter Media‘s Glenn Rubenstein published a detailed endorsement calling the framework a workable first step, while offering nine suggestions to take it further. Learn more about the AMP Accords HERE.

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AMP Explained by the People Who Built It

Dan Granger and Giles Martin sat down with James Cridland across both Podnews Weekly Review and Podcast Business Journal to walk through what the AMP Accords actually propose, and why the industry waited too long to get here. Dan’s framing was direct: Without a shared definition and credible measurement, podcasting keeps frustrating the blue-chip advertisers it needs to scale, and promo code counting isn’t a long-term strategy. Giles pointed to Spotify and YouTube both operating near the AMP-proposed 30-second play threshold as early evidence that the framework isn’t aspirational (and noted that parts of it are already in market).

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