New Gated Video on Spotify, UK Smart TV Podcasting, & More

Today in the business of podcasting:

• A new Signal Hill Insights Pulse Report, conducted in partnership with FlightStory, finds that 45% of monthly podcast consumers in the U.K. used a smart TV to listen to podcasts in the past month, making it the second most-used device behind smartphones and ahead of computers. More than half of video podcast viewers watch during prime time hours, suggesting video podcasting is becoming a living-room, prime-time television behavior in the U.K.
• NPR, its sponsorship subsidiary National Public Media, and podcast distributor PRX have announced a collaboration enabling NPM to sell sponsorships for station-produced podcasts hosted on PRX's Dovetail platform, with stations including Boise State Public Radio, LAist, and WWNO already participating.
• Podcast subscription platform Supporting Cast has launched delivery of gated, subscriber-only video on Spotify using Spotify's Distribution API, making it the first subscription platform to offer this capability. Journalist-led podcasts Libero and Legacy are the first shows to use the feature.
• Media writer Brian Morrissey examines how AI-driven changes to Google Search are accelerating the decline of page-view-based publisher models, and argues that the recent Vox Media sale reflects how owned podcast networks have become central to media companies' valuations.

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.