What is a podcast? Video forces the industry to make a decision

Since July 2025, a secret behind-the-scenes taskforce has been bringing together twelve major industry players, including representatives from Spotify, SiriusXM and YouTube, around one question: what is a podcast? The Hollywood Reporter takes us behind the scenes.

The urgency is more business than technical. With the rise in popularity of video podcasts, advertisers no longer know where to put their budget. Spend on video? Audio? Creators? ” There’s often a turf war, or the subject is simply orphaned, because nobody knows,” sums up Dan Granger, CEO of Oxford Road, the advertising agency behind the initiative.

Advertising measurement is similarly blurred. Traditional tracking tools (pixels, URLs in RSS feeds) no longer work in the same way on Apple, Spotify and YouTube. As a result, it is impossible to standardise the performance of the same campaign across platforms. Oxford Road estimates that unified attribution between YouTube and audio would generate one billion dollars in additional advertising spend. 76% of the brands surveyed said they would increase their podcast budgets if this were the case.

The taskforce has three objectives: a common definition, standardised exposure metrics and an implementation guide. The proposals will be put to a vote by the members before being submitted to bodies such as the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau). An initial response is expected in July!