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• Red Seat Ventures, part of FOX's Tubi group, has acquired premium subscription tool Supercast. Terms weren't given. Supercast’s top 10 podcasters gross more than $26 million per year in subscription revenue, the press release notes; paid subscriptions are a fast-growing part of the podcast ecosystem. Acast partnered with Supercast last April; Supercast is also used by Huberman Lab and This American Life.
• First look: The Ambies award ceremony this year will be hosted by Wyatt Cenac, it's just been announced. The Emmy and WGA award-winning comedian, writer, and producer will be joined by Donwill, who will serve as the evening’s official house DJ.
  • TPA also unveiled its inaugural Vanguard Jury, a "collective of industry leaders and emerging voices dedicated to shaping and elevating the podcasting medium", who selected the 2026 Vanguard Podcaster of the Year.
• Spotify posted its Q4/25 earnings report. The company now has more than 750mn users across the world - more added in the past quarter than ever - and 290mn paid subscribers (up 10% year-on-year). The company claims the success is due to their popular Wrapped campaign - and shared than 300mn users accessed it (which also means 400mn didn't). By this morning, shares were up nearly +15% (but still almost a third lower than a year ago).
  • In terms of podcasting, the prepared remarks tell us that there are 530,000 video podcast shows now on Spotify (and 7mn podcasts). "Video podcast consumption has increased by more than +90%" since Jan 2025; though without absolute numbers, this isn't too helpful. Podcasting wasn't mentioned other than in respect to video podcasts.
  • Ad sales over all of Spotify dropped in 2025 by a total of $21.5mn (-1%); but podcast ad sales dropped in the year by almost $99mn ("due to optimization of podcast inventory"). However, the costs to Spotify of making podcasts also decreased in 2025, helping ad-supported gross margin improve.
  • In 2023, Spotify had 9,123 employees. By the end of 2025, there were -20% fewer, at 7,287.

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