New Megaphone Flighting Tools, Thoughts on iHeart x SiriusXM, & More

Today in the business of podcasting:

• Tom Webster audits iHeartMedia station clusters in Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and Salt Lake City and finds that locally originating programming makes up a tiny fraction of weekday airtime, while local advertising load remains far higher, reframing what a SiriusXM acquisition would actually affect.
• Amplitude Media Partners' Reggie Risseeuw breaks down recent Megaphone ad server updates, including new Priority Pre-Book campaign tools and a mandatory geotargeting requirement taking effect July 14, 2026.
• WARC projects advertisers will spend over $10.5 billion during the four weeks of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, reversing a spending decline from the 2022 Qatar edition, with Spotify expecting the tournament to drive significant content consumption across its platform.
• Kirby Grines examines how the most valuable ad inventory is shifting away from exposure-based outcomes toward measurable results, with creators and rights holders building vertically integrated businesses to capture that value directly.

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.