The YouTube Definition of a View, Podcast Study 2026 Announced, & More

Today in the business of podcasting:

• Spotify says a bug, not a policy, made a podcast ad appear unskippable, telling Podnews the 15-second skip was hidden in the viral example and has since been fixed — and that skipping works for both Free and Premium listeners
• YouTube changes how it counts a "view" starting August 24, registering a play from the very first frame while making the more meaningful "engaged views" metric private, cutting off third-party rankers and data companies
• Point-To-Point Marketing and Strategic Solutions Research announce the Podcast Study 2026, a national effort on discovery, loyalty, and monetization co-sponsored by Crooked Media, NPR, and PRX, with findings due September 14-15 at the Sounds Profitable Business Summit
• The Streaming Wars reports NFL insider Tom Pelissero, out at ESPN, has landed at both Netflix and Spotify-owned The Ringer, a case study in one institutional job splintering into several targeted assignments
• A Magellan AI case study details how boutique network Rhapsody Voices used data-driven creator-sponsor matching to reach better than 80% sell-through on two priority shows as it scaled beyond manual research

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.