Ask The Experts

The Diary of a CEO has become the world’s second biggest podcast and one of the fastest-growing shows globally by building a culture centred around experimentation, audience understanding and constant evolution.

This session will explore how the teams behind The Diary of a CEO and Flightcast think about growth in an increasingly competitive creator landscape. The conversation will unpack how leading podcast teams use experimentation, performance insight and audience data to make smarter creative and commercial decisions, while continuing to build content that resonates at scale.

The panel will also discuss the role failure plays in innovation, why experimentation has become a competitive advantage in modern media, and how the next generation of creator tools and audience intelligence could reshape podcast growth in the years ahead.

Joining the session are Rox, Co-Founder & CEO alongside Steven Bartlett at Flightcast, and Grace Miller, Head of Experimentation and Failure for the Diary of a CEO, moderated by Sally King-Carter, Head of Global Partner Management at Flightstory. Together, the panel will share practical insights and behind-the-scenes learnings from helping build one of the most influential creator-led media ecosystems in the world.

Every ad ops decision is a judgment call and some of them are a lot harder than they look.

When an ad fits, listeners barely notice. When it doesn't, they notice immediately. The line between protecting your audience and leaving money on the table is thinner than most publishers want to admit. And it's where things get interesting.

That's the premise behind Podcast Show London's gameshow panel. Panelists Jen Oon of DAX/Global, Michael Bayston of Acast, and Jenni Skaug of Audioboom join host Scott Klass of SoundStack to compete on the question every ad ops manager faces daily: would you let that ad through?

Real scenarios. Real stakes. Questionable decisions, enthusiastically defended.

Come ready to play.

YouTube is the default home. Netflix is buying in. Apple Podcasts and Spotify are on board. Sponsors are looking for attention. The audience has split three ways: listeners, watchers, and clip scrollers. But most video podcasts have to settle for a generic look, and advertisers for uncreative spots.

Rob Chandler argues that constraint has gone, and with it, programme formats should become the focus: distinctive visual identities, season-led looks, sets that match the show, built at podcast cadence and cost.

For producers, publishers, networks, and the brands backing them.

GEO, or Generative Engine Optimization, is the next frontier of performance marketing — and for audio, the implications are uniquely disorienting. Audio has long existed in a relatively self-contained ecosystem — RSS-native, algorithmically insulated, with its own discovery and distribution logic. But as LLMs reshape how consumers find and engage with content across the web, that closed world is opening up in ways the industry is still reckoning with. How does a medium built on listening adapt when the most powerful new gatekeepers don't listen at all?

In this panel, we'll explore what it means to create and promote podcasts in the era of LLM dominance — and what the GEO revolution means for advertisers operating across both audio and AI-driven search. How do you build a podcast with an eye toward ranking in ChatGPT? What's the right strategy to drive sales from listeners and grow your brand's presence in LLM results?

We'll also venture into stranger territory: a near-future where podcasts are produced less for human ears than for AI agents — content engineered to be "heard" by models, ranked higher, and surfaced to more agents in a self-reinforcing loop. 

Are we ready — as advertisers, publishers, and listeners — for what comes next?

With Ausha’s PSO Control Panel, the show managed to outperform veteran podcasts more than three years old, including shows from high-authority organizations like KPMG, and break into highly competitive conversations on both Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

In this one-of-a-kind session, Irene Picco, Head of Sales at Ausha and Catrin Skaperdas, Audience Development Director at The Podcast Guys and Host of Italian, For Sure, will share the strategies and insights behind this rapid rise — and how you can apply them to your own podcast.

Join us to uncover what helped this new show climb the rankings so quickly and unlock new growth levers for your own show.