Goalhanger Launches The Accelerator Fund, New Fox Creator Studios Head, & More

Today in the business of podcasting:

• Podcasting Outperforms Other Media for Brand Reach and Attention – A new Acast and Nielsen survey of 3,500 UK adults found that adding podcast advertising to a media mix boosts brand consideration 33% more than radio alone, with podcast ads also outperforming live TV, BVOD, and streaming video in both campaign reach and audience credibility.
• Goalhanger Launches Creator Fund to Grow UK Podcast Talent – Gary Lineker's podcast production company Goalhanger is launching The Accelerator, a content creator fund offering select UK podcasters up to £10,000 in funding plus mentorship and production support, as the company continues scaling its hybrid revenue model of podcast advertising and premium subscriptions.
• Why Attention-Based Advertising Could Be Podcasting's Next Big Opportunity – Media strategist Kirby Grines argues that traditional reach-and-frequency advertising fails to account for audience attention quality, pointing to the rise of branded narrative content like microdramas as a model that podcast producers could adapt through affordable branded audio fiction to drive deeper listener engagement.
• 4 Million Books Published in 2025 — So Why Do People Say There Are Too Many Podcasts? – New Bowker data shows book publishing surged 32.5% year-over-year in 2025, topping four million titles with zero cultural controversy, prompting podcast industry observers to push back on the tired "too many podcasts" narrative given that fewer than 208,000 new podcast feeds launched globally that same year.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.