This Week’s Influencer: What Brands Want 2026 Drops; Why You Shouldn’t Avoid News; Bad Data Buries Audio; SiriusXM Bets on Reach; and More…

What do brands really want? Find out in this week’s episode of The Media Roundtable.

Giles Martin (EVP, Strategy, Oxford Road), Kyle Jelinek (VP, Client Services, Oxford Road), and Megan Smith (Director, Media Strategy, Tecovas) break down all the learnings from our new What Brands Want report. Together, they sift through the data on spend growth, guarantees, and podcasting’s true impact.

And for more in-depth analysis, Lara O’Reilly breaks down why the new report matters in her Business Insider article.

“With podcasting, there’s always going to be this challenge with triangulating the data points and building the story for the channel.” – Megan Smith (Director, Media Strategy, Tecovas)

Holding Back Spend – More than 50% of brands grew their podcast and audio budgets this year. But only 40% expect to do the same in 2027. Why are we leaving billions on the sidelines of a proven channel? The answer, in a word, is measurement. Brands still can’t prove ROI as easily in podcasts as they can in other channels. There are industry initiatives that could help change that (hello, AMP Accords!). But until then, brands that can triangulate lift with confidence, like Tecovas, get to scale first.

Guaranteed Performance – The biggest brand request? Guaranteed performance opportunities, akin to a CPA-type deal. While publishers might not jump at those arrangements—and we’ve seen execution issues in the past—brands understandably need security in their deals. Other approaches that build trust include lower testing minimums, category exclusivity, and the promise of extra impressions to hit goals.

True Impact – A surprising 40% of brands think they’re under-attributing audio’s impact. They want to grow the channel, but can’t understand the true ROI of their dollars. So they scale easily measurable channels first. But brands don’t want to spend less in podcasting; they simply want to understand the channel’s true impact before investing further. One tool that’s earning our brands’ trust is geo lift studies. Only 32% of brands surveyed use it, but those who do consider it one of their most trusted data sources.

For more data-driven insights on what brands are looking for in the world of podcasting, audio, and creator media, read the 2026 What Brands Want report here. And for a deep dive from the experts, check out the full episode of The Media Roundtable below.

The Classifieds

The B2B Podcast That Does Not Look Like One

Network: JoneKiri  / Episodic Downloads: 217k

Q4 is B2B’s busiest season, and the September ORBIT report has a message for marketers heading into it: B2B is not strictly business. Our analysis of the top-performing B2B podcasts found that only three traditional business shows made the list, with winners spanning eight categories. This week’s classifieds prove that point, with one business show and one that is decidedly not.

We’ll start with the business one: The Iced Coffee Hour, hosted by Graham Stephan and Jack Selby, is a long-form interview show about personal finance, investing, and building wealth. Guests have included Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev and index-investing evangelist Ben Felix, and the show has built a massive audience on YouTube. ORBIT’s advice is to pick a few proven business winners and then diversify—and a show with this kind of reach and engaged audience is a smart place to start. Ready to pour yourself a cup? Click the button below.

Get The Deal

Your B2B Audience Is Listening to This. Are You Buying It?

Network: AdLarge / Episodic Downloads: 144k

When we say B2B doesn’t just perform on business shows, we’re thinking of shows like our next classified. Unexplained Encounters,—formerly known as Darkness Prevails Podcast—finds Brenden Dean sharing everyday people’s most terrifying and unexplained experiences. That includes everything from mysterious creatures in national forests to supernatural events that upend lives, with listeners left to decide for themselves what to believe.

It may not sound like a B2B show, but that’s exactly the point. Your business audiences listen to all kinds of shows, and ORBIT found that true crime and society & culture titles can turn their ears just as much as tech or business can. If you want to reach them where the crowd isn’t, click the button below. For the full data, check out the September ORBIT report.

Get The Deal

In Case You Missed It

“News” Avoidance Is Costing You More Than You Think

Despite growing demand for news on social platforms, news creators are stuck with a difficult business model. Digiday reports that brand safety concerns limit sponsorship opportunities, while changing algorithms and content moderation make platform revenue unpredictable. Those interviewed point to subscriptions as a more dependable revenue source, with some joining services such as SaySo, which brings vetted video news creators together behind a paywall. We know from podcasting that news can be a top-performing genre, and brands that avoid it altogether miss out on a valuable audience. We encourage marketers to assess the credibility, content, and audience of individual creators rather than broadly exclude an entire category.

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Bad Data Is Burying Audio in Your MMM

New IAB guidance argues that incomplete campaign data can obscure podcast and audio’s contribution in marketing mix models, recommending that brands separate broadcast, streaming, podcasting, and satellite rather than lumping them together. Better data does not automatically produce higher measured returns, but it does give each channel a fair shot at getting proper credit. Podcasts, radio, and digital audio are consumed differently, and collapsing them into a single input can bury the signal. If you want to make sure audio is getting the credit it deserves in your MMM, talk to us. We can help.

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SiriusXM Chose Reach Over Exclusivity

Forbes reports that SiriusXM is favoring broad, ad-supported distribution over large exclusive video-slate deals, posting 20% year-over-year growth in podcast advertising revenue in Q3. While that result does not isolate the contribution of its distribution strategy, the direction is clear. For advertisers, broad distribution keeps strong shows available where people already watch and listen. That model is more valuable to marketers than platform-exclusive deals, and SiriusXM appears to be betting on exactly that.

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#SaveTheLiveReads

Taking the Guesswork Out of Dinner

Sadie Robertson Huff of WHOA That’s Good brings this week’s #STLR with a relatable endorsement of Hungryroot, highlighting how the service simplifies mealtime for busy families. Sadie notes that with more than a thousand grocery items to choose from, including meals, snacks, and everyday essentials, Hungryroot makes it easier to plan ahead and skip the grocery store. She also highlights the platform’s ability to screen out more than 200 additives and how it lets her personalize orders based on her family’s preferences. The best moment comes when she shares that her family let Hungryroot pick their first order, and that some of those selections have since become family staples. By combining convenience with a genuine family testimonial, Sadie makes Hungryroot feel like a practical solution for busy households.

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