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Muck Rack joins Sounds Profitable as podcast industry draws PR platforms in

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Muck Rack, the AI communications platform, today joined the Sounds Profitable Partner Network, the Boston-based trade association for the podcasting industry announced on May 13, 2026. The partnership brings together two organizations whose work has been converging as podcast appearances generate editorial pickups, YouTube clips, and citations in AI-powered search results – blurring the lines between earned media strategy and audio distribution.

The announcement signals something broader than a standard partnership deal. Sounds Profitable, which counts nearly 210 organizations globally in its network, has historically served podcast companies and audio platforms. Muck Rack is not a podcast company. It is a PR software platform used by communications professionals to track media coverage, monitor brand mentions, and measure how organizations appear in news and in AI-generated answers. Its entry into the Sounds Profitable ecosystem reflects a shift in where the podcast industry is drawing attention from outside the audio world.

Podcasting as earned media infrastructure

The rationale for the partnership is grounded in a structural change in how podcast content travels. A single brand appearance on a podcast no longer stays within that episode’s listenership. It lives on YouTube as a video clip, gets picked up by journalists writing about the same topics, and increasingly surfaces when users query AI-powered search systems. According to the press release from Sounds Profitable, 71% of podcast creators now produce video content, meaning the distribution surface of any given audio appearance has expanded considerably.

Muck Rack’s platform monitors exactly that kind of multi-channel propagation. The company combines global media monitoring, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) insights, social listening, media data, AI automation, and analyst advisory services. According to the announcement, the platform helps organizations manage reputation, act quickly, and demonstrate impact across the PR workflow. Thousands of journalists also use Muck Rack’s free tools to showcase their work and analyse news.

For PR professionals advising brands on podcast strategy, the question has shifted. It is no longer only about which shows to appear on. It is about how that appearance travels – whether it earns editorial coverage, whether it surfaces in AI-powered search results when someone asks a brand-related question, and whether the brand’s communications team can measure the full downstream reach of a single recorded conversation.

“PR professionals are finally recognizing what podcast listeners have always known: audio is where trust gets built. Muck Rack has been part of my toolkit throughout my career because it’s one of the few platforms that can actually measure that trust over time,” said Molly DeMellier, Head of Communications at Sounds Profitable. “Bringing Muck Rack into the Sounds Profitable Partner Network gives our team, clients, and the broader podcast industry, the strategic communications infrastructure they deserve.”

The Sounds Profitable network and what membership includes

Sounds Profitable describes itself as the trade association for the podcasting industry. Founded to address a gap between podcasting’s audience scale and the industry’s ability to communicate its value to brands and media buyers, the organization operates an influential newsletter with 10,000 subscribers globally. It runs a podcast covering audio industry developments, maintains what it describes as the only searchable repository of key data points in podcasting, and hosts events including Podcast Movement, Cannes Lions, SXSW, and The Podcast Show.

Partner Network membership, according to the announcement, includes direct access to that research database, membership in a Slack community of more than 2,100 industry leaders, monthly strategic advising sessions, and priority access to major industry events. The nearly 210 members span the breadth of the audio ecosystem – hosting platforms, ad tech providers, agencies, publishers, and now, for the first time in a clearly visible way, a PR software company.

That last detail is the one industry observers are likely to note. The Sounds Profitable Partner Network has functioned as a map of where the podcast industry’s infrastructure sits. Muck Rack’s entry suggests that infrastructure is expanding upstream – into the communications and reputation management layer that operates before a podcast is even distributed, and well after the episode file is downloaded.

The Podcast Show London: where the partnership begins

The partnership launches with a joint appearance at The Podcast Show London, scheduled for May 20 to 21, 2026. Molly DeMellier, Head of Communications at Sounds Profitable, and Natan Edelsburg, Chief Partnerships Officer at Muck Rack, will appear together on the Brand Stage for a fireside chat titled “The New Word of Mouth: Podcasts, Earned Media, and AI Search.”

The session is framed around original research from both organizations. According to the press release, DeMellier and Edelsburg will examine how awareness, earned media, and discoverability now compound across channels, and what that means for communications strategy. The 71% video creator figure from Sounds Profitable’s research shapes part of the session’s argument: that a brand appearance can no longer be treated as a single-channel event.

The Brand Stage placement is notable. The Podcast Show London’s Brand Stage is specifically oriented toward how companies and communications professionals engage with the medium – not the creator or technical side of podcasting. It is a signal about who the session is aimed at: marketing and communications decision-makers who are still forming their frameworks for podcast strategy, rather than podcast industry insiders already embedded in the space.

Edelsburg addressed that gap directly. “Podcasts have become one of the most powerful channels for building brand credibility, but most PR teams don’t yet have a framework for thinking about them strategically,” he said. “Sounds Profitable is the organization that understands this space better than anyone. We’re excited to bring our research and platform to their network and to start that conversation on stage in London.”

Market context: podcast advertising at record scale

The partnership arrives at a moment of documented commercial growth in podcasting. Podcast advertising spending climbed 32% year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to Magellan AI data. That followed 26% year-over-year growth in Q3 2025. The IAB and PwC’s 2025 Internet Advertising Revenue Report placed total podcast advertising at $2.9 billion in the United States for the full year.

Edison Research’s Infinite Dial 2026, released in March 2026, found that 58% of Americans now listen to podcasts monthly – a new record, equivalent to 167 million people. Weekly listeners stood at 45%, approximately 130 million. The figures represent a medium that has moved well beyond niche status, yet a structural imbalance persists. Consumers dedicate 31% of their media time to audio content while advertisers allocate only 9% of budgets to audio platforms, a 22-percentage-point gap widely cited as the central problem in audio advertising economics.

Video has accelerated the audience reach numbers but complicated the measurement picture. Edison Research updated its podcast ranking methodology in 2025 to include individuals whose sole podcast consumption occurred through video platforms, reflecting the scale shift brought by YouTube. Audioboom reported that over 13% of its business came from video revenue by Q3 2025, and Apple introduced HLS video podcast infrastructure with dynamic ad insertion in February 2026.

That complexity – audio appearing on video platforms, podcast appearances generating editorial coverage, brand mentions surfacing in AI-generated answers – is precisely the environment Muck Rack was built to monitor. The partnership with Sounds Profitable places Muck Rack in direct proximity to the industry’s primary research and knowledge network at a moment when brands are actively working out what podcast measurement actually means.

GEO and AI search: the emerging measurement frontier

One of the more technically specific aspects of Muck Rack’s offering, as described in the announcement, is its Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) insights capability. GEO refers to the practice of understanding and improving how a brand or organization appears in answers generated by large language models and AI-powered search systems such as Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and similar tools.

The addition of GEO to the podcast context is not incidental. As podcast appearances generate transcripts, editorial pickups, and YouTube clips, those downstream artifacts become part of the content corpus that AI search systems index and synthesize when generating answers. A brand that appears consistently in high-quality podcast conversations, and whose appearances generate further editorial coverage, may surface more frequently in AI-generated brand-related answers.

Muck Rack’s platform tracks both traditional media monitoring and how brands appear in AI-generated answers. That dual capability places it at an intersection that few PR platforms have reached. For communications professionals working with brands that are expanding into podcasting, the ability to track the full chain from audio appearance to AI search citation represents a new measurement surface.

Industry convergence: PR technology meets the podcast ecosystem

The Sounds Profitable Partner Network has grown from its earlier configuration of around 150 partners – visible in materials from Podcast Movement 2024 – to nearly 210 as of this announcement, a figure also reflected in the organization’s most recent public-facing descriptions. That growth trajectory maps onto the period of strongest commercial development in podcasting, when advertising spending, audience measurement, and distribution infrastructure were all advancing simultaneously.

Muck Rack joining that network is, in one reading, a data point about normalization. Podcasting is now sufficiently embedded in mainstream media and brand communications that the PR platform sector has direct strategic interest in understanding it – not as a novelty or a supplemental channel but as a primary channel for earned media that requires monitoring, measurement, and reputation management at the same level as print, broadcast, or digital news.

The announcement noted that Sounds Profitable sits at the center of the industry for companies looking to enter the space. That positioning has historically attracted audio and advertising technology companies. Its attraction of a communications platform suggests the categories of companies that see strategic value in the podcast ecosystem are expanding.

For marketing and communications professionals, the partnership offers a practical signal: the infrastructure for treating podcast appearances with the same analytical rigor as traditional press placements is taking shape. Whether through Muck Rack’s monitoring and GEO tools, through Sounds Profitable’s research database, or through the two organizations’ joint work that will be visible at The Podcast Show London and in future programming, the gap between podcast strategy and mainstream PR measurement is narrowing.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Sounds Profitable, the trade association for the podcasting industry, and Muck Rack, an AI communications platform used by PR professionals to monitor media coverage and AI search appearances.

What: Muck Rack joined the Sounds Profitable Partner Network, a network of nearly 210 organizations globally. The partnership includes a joint appearance at The Podcast Show London on May 20-21, 2026, with a Brand Stage fireside chat on podcasts, earned media, and AI search. Muck Rack brings global media monitoring, Generative Engine Optimization insights, social listening, and AI automation to a network historically focused on audio and advertising technology companies.

When: The partnership was announced on May 13, 2026. The first joint public appearance is scheduled for The Podcast Show London on May 21, 2026.

Where: Sounds Profitable is based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Podcast Show London takes place in London. The Partner Network operates globally, spanning nearly 210 organizations across the audio and advertising industries.

Why: Podcast appearances now travel across YouTube, editorial coverage, and AI-powered search results – expanding the measurement surface beyond traditional listener data. Muck Rack’s platform tracks how brands appear across all of these channels, including in AI-generated answers. According to Sounds Profitable’s own research, 71% of podcast creators now produce video content, meaning a single brand appearance can reach multiple audiences and platforms simultaneously. As podcast advertising spending reached $2.9 billion in the United States in 2025 and monthly listenership hit a record 58% of Americans, PR professionals are under increasing pressure to account for podcasting within mainstream communications measurement frameworks.

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Luís Rijo is a seasoned marketing professional with over 10 years of experience in Digital Marketing, Search, Social, Display, Video, and DOOH. Based in Europe. Also writing in the spend. Reach out via [email protected]

Sourced from PPC LAND

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SiriusXM CEO Calls Audio Ad Sales Market “Tough”

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By Etan Vlessing

Anxiety among consumers and advertisers is challenging the satellite radio company as it gets into new digital formats, including streaming features and podcasting, Jennifer Witz told an investors conference.

Amid a weaker advertising market, SiriusXM CEO Jennifer Witz pointed to positive signs that include an auto sales recovery and a podcast market adapting to anxiety among brand marketers to forecast an ad sales recovery into the close of 2023.

But U.S. ad sales have softened for the satellite radio giant this year as more audio platforms compete for fewer ad dollars amid anxiety for consumers and brand marketers. “It’s choppy. It’s definitely choppy out there. I watch it every week. And it’s a tough environment,” Witz told the J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference during a session that was webcast Monday.

Besides the flagship subscription entertainment service SiriusXM, Witz runs the ad-supported Pandora streaming platform and is looking to lead the ad-driven podcast business by bringing top marketing brands to that growing audio content market.

“Some brands are sitting on the sidelines until they see whether the strength of the consumer is really there,” Witz reported while pointing to increased ad sales demand for the travel and restaurants sectors. But other brands and ad categories face headwinds, including direct response and direct-to-consumer advertising platforms as promotional tools.

To make podcasts more appealing to brand marketers, SiriusXM is enabling digital advertisers to reach specific shows or an entire audience demographic within its podcast network. Audio advertising driven by new digital formats has also become a growing focus at SiriusXM as it shifts to a streaming model on top of its satellite radio broadcasts, while also rolling out its exclusive 360L technology to combine satellite and streaming features.

Witz said car drivers are increasingly looking to the convenience of audio streaming services to curate their out-of-home listening, rather than have subscribers just turn the ignition and flip the dashboard radio dial to see what strikes their fancy. Here products like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto represent new competition for SiriusXM.

“They’ve (streaming platforms) set a different expectation. There should be a guided experience to find the content you love,” she added of 360L technology offering curated audio recommendations based on listening history and selected favorites for drivers available right after the engine is turned on and a journey is about to get underway.

New streaming features aim to have drivers use SiriusXM outside the car. “As we build out this platform, we’ll be able to connect people to the out-of-car listening experience much more seamlessly,” Witz predicted.

That said, the SiriusXM chief insisted her company had a loyal subscriber base that has long used rival audio listening products in cars dating back to the iPod and early iPhones. “We would expect our customers to do that. We view ourselves as a complementary, but very differentiated service. So in the face of growth in algorithms and automation and AI, we’re pretty unique,” Witz told the investors conference.

Feature Image Credit: Jennifer Witz Cindy Ord/Getty Images

By Etan Vlessing

Sourced from The Hollywood Reporter

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Why Podcasting Is A Smart Marketing Strategy For Businesses Today

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By Nancy Marshall

Building an audience is an old strategy in marketing. Did you know that Proctor & Gamble created soap operas so they could build an audience to buy their soap?

That’s right. In the 1930s, P&G sponsored daytime serial dramas on the radio to advertise their products to housewives. Why? Because research suggested that women wanted to be entertained while doing housework. And so, literal “soap operas” were born.

In the early to mid 20th century, Edward Bernays — long considered the “father of public relations” — also built audiences on behalf of his clientele, which coincidentally included P&G. The Conversation reports that “to counteract President Coolidge’s stiff image, Bernays organized ‘pancake breakfasts’ and White House concerts with Al Jolson and other Broadway performers.” Knowing that such events would garner significant media attention and ingratiate Coolidge with new social circles, Bernays provided an opportunity to “control and regiment the masses” in Coolidge’s favor. Who can say no to a pancake breakfast?

Building an audience is as important now as it was then. We just have more tools at our disposal: From YouTube videos to blog posts and social media campaigns, there are more ways than ever to reach millions of people with your own content.

Podcasting is one of the most powerful ways to reach people. According to one study, more than half of Americans over age 12 (144 million Americans) have listened to a podcast — up from 44% in 2018. It’s estimated that 60 million Americans listen to podcasts weekly. That’s a lot of potential listeners.

Because of that avid listenership and the popularity of home voice assistant devices like Amazon Alexa and Google Home, podcasting is now an important part of the marketing mix for a modern brand strategy. Home voice assistant devices are making it easier than ever to listen to music, podcasts, news, flash briefings and other types of audio content while you’re doing other things in your home, whether it’s getting dressed in the morning, cooking meals, cleaning or even relaxing on the couch.

Marketers can create podcasts to build an audience based on a brand or a specific area of expertise. If they trust you, then people are likely to start trusting what your business can bring to the table — and they’ll show their trust with their pocketbooks.

Whether it’s for your personal or organizational brand, building an audience of listeners who know, like and trust you — and are comfortable giving you their money — is a smart business strategy. In fact, 41% of monthly podcast listeners have household incomes of $75,000 or more. Reaching them makes sense financially.

So how do you reach them? As always, content is king. Make your content interesting. Make it informative. A podcast helps you tell your story, so more people will know, like and trust you. It also allows you to position yourself as a credible expert from a listener’s perspective. With my podcast, I’m able to do just that as an expert on public relations.

When you invite a guest to be interviewed on your podcast, it becomes an in-depth, even intimate conversation. You can dig deep into your guest’s background — what makes them tick, what they’ve accomplished and what their plans are. Once you dig deep, you get to know your guest better, so you can help them solve their greatest problems. I call it the “white knight” strategy because you’re perfectly positioned to swoop in and save the day by helping them solve those problems.

With that in mind, your guests are often your best brand ambassadors. They’re likely to have a sense of ownership in your podcast and to help promote it through word of mouth and their social media channels. That helps you expand your sphere of influence and strengthen your personal brand — and you’re not even doing the work.

As word spreads, you may even receive media coverage — the cherry on the podcasting sundae. When media members hear you describe your area of expertise, they’re more likely to call on you the next time they have to report on a relevant topic. Your quote can become the closing quote of the story.

Even if it doesn’t lead to media coverage, a podcast is valuable in itself. All of the content that you create can be repurposed as blog posts, infographics, social media posts, e-books and even print books. In my experience, there’s no better cornerstone content for your area of expertise. Plus, all of that content can boost your search engine optimization profile — on Google Search and beyond.

So what are you waiting for? Start podcasting, and build your audience.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Nancy Marshall

Nancy Marshall, The PR Maven(R),CEO and Founder, Marshall Communications,creating and implementing marketing/PR/personal branding strategies

Sourced from Forbes

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Why All Business Owners Should Consider Podcasting

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By Dennis Kirwan

In my over a decade of experience in digital marketing, I’ve seen few services skyrocket into prominence as much as podcasting. This growth is just one reason our agency started offering a podcast development service. In this article, we’ll cover why this platform should be considered by all business owners and some tips for starting your own.

Power Of The Podcast

It seems like everyone has a favourite podcast these days. The popularity and influence of podcasting are expanding exponentially in the U.S. and around the world. Nearly 25% of Americans currently listen to podcasts regularly, and there is no reason to believe that number will not continue to grow well into the future. With such a dramatic rise, it’s no wonder digital marketers and brands are also listening and working to utilize the power of the podcast to better connect businesses to a wider audience than ever before.

These roughly 70 million listeners are drawn in by the promise of interesting and relevant content that’s both easily consumable and entertaining. Perhaps the best aspect of the medium is that it allows people the ability to instantaneously seek out and choose for themselves the specific topics that matter most to them at any given time. This means people who listen to podcasts are not only a captive audience, but they’re an audience that wants to be captivated.

I remember back in the early 2000s when blogs first created significant excitement across all sectors. It was no secret that the top blogs — those that produced the most views and web traffic — delivered the most relevant and accessible content. They gave readers information that they could easily use to purchase the products and services that best fit their needs, wants and budgets. Today, podcasts have risen to the level of blogs for their extraordinary ability to also effectively deliver the quality content that consumers desire. What’s even more astounding is that podcasts can be transcribed and turned into blogs, which adds even more content to boost rankings on search engines.

The nature of the podcast means the host(s) and their guests can deep-dive into any subject area for as long as is necessary. This allows listeners to become fully immersed and versed on the benefits of any given product or service provided by a company or industry. Therefore, the podcast can take the old concept of the “sales pitch” and turn it on its head, where it instead gets transformed into a conversation. A podcast host can explore real-world examples of a product in action, or interview someone who has genuinely had their life changed by your company’s service. The authenticity of such an interaction is, in my opinion, the backbone of quality podcasting content.

Feature Image Credit: Pexels

By Dennis Kirwan

Dennis Kirwan is currently the CEO of Dymic Digital, a Marketing Agency based in Los Angeles, CA. www.Dymic.com

Sourced from Forbes

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How radio stalwart Global is adopting podcasting

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By Lucinda Southern

Radio and entertainment company Global has been increasing its podcasting capabilities over the last three months. On Nov. 29, it introduced 1,500 podcasts into the Global Player app, the company’s one-stop shop for all Global content.

Global Player will house popular podcasts like “How Stuff Works” and “Serial” alongside Global’s radio show podcasts, and its few original podcasts like Classic FM’s true crime series “Case Notes” and more recent releases “Tomorrow’s Nerd” and “The Food Medic.”

“The simple strategy is to get more people spending time with Global products,” said James Hickman, Global’s director of digital. “We want to cover the day with radio. There are times throughout the day where listening isn’t as strong, like during the commute or at the weekends when people have more time to invest. This is about driving incremental listening and potentially new audiences.”

In the last three months, Global has built a centralized podcast team where between six and 20 people will be working on podcasts at any one time. It’s produced around 10 new podcasts during this period, and it plans to add more of the most popular third-party podcasts chosen by a combination of editors picks and technology.

“This is not a catalog of everything, only the best,” said Hickman. With podcasts that Global has commercial relationships with the publishers it can monetize the content through Dax, its digital audio ad platform. Dax makes it easy to monetize U.K. audiences on U.S. podcasts, which tend to advertise DTC brands like food delivery kits or mattresses that don’t ship overseas.

Global hasn’t pitched the commercial benefits of the expanded and improved Global Player to Charlie Yeates, commercial trading partner at Mediacom, but additional data is welcomed, particularly as listeners can log into the app, which would give a richer picture of listening habits. “Podcast metrics are extremely opaque,” said Yeates. “We know someone has downloaded; we don’t know if they have listened.”

The recent push into podcasting, despite the company’s long heritage in audio, comes from the ability to monetize it more effectively now, said Hickman. “We want to make it easy to find great podcasts.”

However, having just 1,500 podcasts could be limiting for Global if it wants to be a destination for podcasting. “Becoming the main U.K. podcasting app is a challenging business. You have to match Apple, Google and Spotify if you want to play in that space,” said Matt Deegan, a consultant covering the radio industry.

Global will initially get the word out across radio brands on air, digital and social campaigns. The company recently acquired outdoor ad companies Primesight and Outdoor Plus.

“For Global, it’s exciting to be in the market to bring podcasts to more people,” said Deegan, “Fifteen hundred is not a bad start if they can help drive up that 13 percent (of U.K. podcast listeners). That’s a good place for any commercial radio broadcaster to be.”

Commercial radio brands like Radio X and Capital cater to the younger market, so Global doesn’t have the same need as the BBC to launch an audio platform for younger people. BBC Sounds doesn’t offer access to third-party content, although it has said it plans to.

Global Player was originally launched in November 2017 as a place for audiences to listen live to Global’s dozens of stations, including Capital, Radio X and Classic, and catch up on shows. The company wants to put more emphasis on the Global Player app, turning this into a more consumer-recognizable brand, rather than through radio brand apps. Global wouldn’t share how many people currently use Global Player, although it said its brands reach 32 million people a week.

An added feature that allows listeners to skip songs while listening to live radio — currently available on just three of its radio brands — increased listen length in the Player on average by 60 percent and the average number of sessions by 50 percent, although it wouldn’t share specific numbers.

By Lucinda Southern

Sourced from DIGIDAY UK

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How To Build Brand Authority With Podcasting

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Have you ever thought about starting a podcast?

Are you looking for other ways to create content to demonstrate thought leadership and build brand authority?

This week on the podcast, I dive into how to build brand authority with podcasting. Yes, podcasting. In this episode you’ll learn my personal podcasting journey and how my podcast has helped grow Casual Fridays, why you should start a podcast, my podcasting schedule and workflow, and much more.

Let’s do this…

About the show:

The Social Media Social Hour is a podcast for marketers and entrepreneurs looking to get on the social media fast track. The podcast is an interview format, where each week I get up close and personal with top brands and influencers to talk social media, tech and online marketing. Each week I share tools that I personally use to help me with social media management, sales, marketing, accounts management, and productivity. The Social Media Social Hour is presented by Tack – Power your marketing with authentic content from customers and fans.

In this episode, here is what you’ll discover:

  • Why you should start a podcast.
  • Podcast statistics from a 2016 study by Edison Research and Triton Digital.
  • My personal podcast journey and how I’ve built authority for my brand with my podcast.
  • What you should podcast about.
  • What type of podcast you should create.
  • The ideal length of a podcast.
  • A tried and tested podcasting schedule and workflow.
  • The equipment and software needed to start a podcast.
  • Steps you can take to grow a podcast audience.

Memorable quotes:

  • “There are over 57 million people 12+ listening to podcasts in the United States.”
  • “40% of podcast listeners will consumer 1-3 hours of podcasts per week.”
  • “64% of podcast listeners consume 3 or more podcasts per week.”
  • “Fortunately for me, my podcast has also brought revenue for my agency.”
  • “What should you podcast about starts with the question, who is your target audience?”
  • “Podcasting is a great alternative to creating content for your brand or business.”
  • “There is no podcasting police, at the end of the day, create great content and your type or length doesn’t matter.”
  • “30 minute podcasts are ideal as it’s the typical commute for a person or the amount of time they work out.”
  • “If the content is good, length doesn’t matter.”

Items mentioned in the show:

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Sourced from Casual Fridays

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