Christmas brings a new era for podcasting?

Sponsored by Magellan AI. Happy holidays from the team at Magellan AI

• In Germany, Hypecast - which makes software for corporate podcasts - looked back at its year, noting in an email that the company started 2025 saying "we will have to be laser-focused to not get distracted from all the things happening around us" - advice perhaps we could all gain from for next year. The company opened a podcast studio in Berlin in 2025, will expand to video next year, and gave us the present nobody else did: a decent picture for the top of today's newsletter! Fröhliche Weihnachten!
• Amplifi Media's Steven Goldstein suggests that 2026 is a new era in podcasting - the year of liquid content, "defined by how audiences behave—not by how the industry wishes they would".
• USA Today covers "how to find your next favorite podcast". "Look at the charts," try the recommendations", and "ask AI" are in their list; the example app used is Spotify.

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Image: Hypecast