Studio Stage

Tech – including AI – is changing everything, at an accelerating rate. Whether you’re excited, threatened or just confused, none of us can ignore the future being built for us (whether we want it or not). There is no more important force at work in the world right now. But how can we, as journalists and storytellers, make sense of what’s happening for mainstream audiences? Tech stories are, almost by definition, difficult to tell; non-linear, complex and, well, techy. Tristan Redman, host of The Global Story podcast, meets three of the world’s most accomplished and influential chroniclers of how tech is changing our world: Karen Hao and Nicky Woolf (co-hosts of The Interface podcast) and Carole Cadwalladr (co-presenter of Stalked). This session is brought to you by BBC Studios.

This session explores why South Asian audiences are tuning out of podcasts — and why the issue goes far beyond representation. Drawing on new research from Global, the conversation unpacks how listening tastes differ across communities, what creates genuine cultural connection, and what the industry must do to stay relevant and grow.

This panel pulls back the curtain on both the business and creative journey behind the show, from development and partnership strategy to marketing, live touring, and the path to TV adaptation. Join stand-up comedian and writer Edd Hedges, host Jodi Tovay, and Executive Producer Donald Albright for a conversation about building a genre-defying podcast with global impact. Moderated by Steve Ackerman.

Featuring Patreon leadership and creators, the conversation will unpack the mechanics of modern discovery:
how to reach the right audiences, what converts casual listeners into committed fans, and which tools and
product features are actually addressing these common pain points.

Tracing the journey from their early days on indie station Radio X (formerly Xfm) to their high-profile move to the BBC, Rachel Burden - presenter, broadcaster and longtime fan - sits down with award-winning comedians Elis James and John Robins to uncover the secrets behind the show’s longevity, its fiercely loyal fanbase, and the many reinventions and iterations that have shaped the past 12 years.

Joined by Katie Pollard (BBC Business Affairs) and Stuart Morgan (Audio Always), the session will also explore the programme’s recent move into the commercial space, while managing to maintain a presence on BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC Sounds. 

What does it really take to start from nothing and build something people want to hear? In this candid and practical session, broadcaster Edith Bowman joins Katie Atkin from Girls in Low Places to unpack the realities of launching a podcast from the ground up.

Drawing on their own experiences carving out space in competitive industries, Edith and Katie will explore how to find your angle, develop confidence behind the mic, create meaningful content without big budgets, how to secure A list guests via their own relationships and the reasons why top talent want to work with them.

Expect practical advice, behind-the-scenes stories, and a refreshing perspective on embracing imperfection, backing your ideas, and starting before you feel ready. Whether you’re an aspiring podcaster or looking to evolve your current project, this conversation will leave you with the tools and motivation to begin.

Podcasting’s rise has been nothing short of meteoric, evolving from a niche format to a serious commercial industry in just over a decade.

The question now isn’t whether it works. It’s where the next phase of growth comes from.

In this session, we explore the forces shaping what happens next, from new tools and technologies to shifting business models, global expansion, brand-funded content, and evolving approaches to monetisation.

But beyond the trends, this is about the real bets being made: where investment is flowing, what’s actually driving revenue, and where the market may be overestimating opportunity.

Expect a clear, strategic view of where momentum is building, where it isn’t, and what it means for creators, producers and platforms alike.
Whether you’re building, investing or creating, you’ll leave with a sharper understanding of where the next opportunities are likely to emerge.

Join Nish Kumar and Coco Khan, hosts of Pod Save The UK; Crooked Media - the experts behind progressive, action-driven programming like Pod Save The UK and Pod Save America; and Audioboom, for a panel on tapping into new media to grow your audience. They’ll unpack how they’ve tackled the surge in political media audiences across the globe, and how to meet audiences where they are with hopeful news content across podcasts, YouTube & social media.
 

After a decade of rapid growth, high-budget commissions, and expanding production teams, podcasting has entered a more sober phase. What some describe as a downturn is better understood as a correction.

A decade after Serial launched a global fascination with narrative crime storytelling, true crime remains one of the most consumed and culturally significant podcast genres. This panel brings together voices from across the spectrum to explore how the genre has evolved, what audience expectations look like now, and where true crime storytelling is headed next. Expect conversation on genre saturation, new narrative formats, ethical storytelling, and lessons from case studies that reveal bigger shifts in how listeners engage with real-world stories.

As podcasting expands across audio, video and social platforms, revenue models are becoming more sophisticated. This session focuses on how to maximize monetization across every touchpoint, turning audience attention into measurable commercial value.
Rather than debating audio versus video, the discussion centres on scalable revenue, performance, and long-term profitability for studios, platforms and brands.

Podcasting is one of the most intimate mediums. Listeners don’t just hear you, they feel like they know you. And when the subject is relationships, that intimacy goes even further.

But for creators, that raises a difficult question. What should you actually share, and what should you keep private? How close is too close?

This session turns that tension into a practical toolkit. Drawing on real examples from relationship-led shows, the panel explores how to make clear decisions about boundaries before you hit record, and what happens when those boundaries are tested.

Chasing down and sharing the truth with an audience bombarded with fakery, false information and just too much information. 

How are Top Comment, Fame Under Fire and PoliticsJOE deciding which stories to tell and how and when to tell them? 

How to meet the expectations of the that new audience and strategies for making sure the content finds them.

A breakdown of how we made Invisible Hands – one of the BBC’s breakout podcasts hits of last year.

 

YouTube gives you more data than any podcast host ever did. The problem is most of it will lead you to the wrong conclusion. Teams and creators check the wrong stats, in the wrong order, diagnose the wrong problems, and either fix things that aren't broken or miss the thing that is.
This session introduces the ARC Framework, a three-layer diagnostic built from real show data and grounded in YouTube analytics. It's organised around three questions, asked in sequence: Are they staying? Are they coming back? Are they acting?
You'll leave knowing which 8 metrics actually matter, what each one is telling you, what order to check them in, and what to do when one of them isn't moving. Whether you're producing shows for clients or growing your own, this is the session that makes YouTube Studio make sense.

You've been building your brands on borrowed land. You're chasing algorithms, using third party data, and relying on platform distribution to grow your brand. The moment the rules change, so does your reach and your relevance. But it doesn't have to be this way! The brands and creators winning today aren't just growing audiences, they are owning them with first party data that no platform can take away. At FlightStory, we've built Creator Insights: a first party data platform designed specifically for the creator economy, giving advertisers direct access to the most engaged audiences across the creator ecosystem. You can expect to come away from this talk understanding the power of owning your audience, and how your relationship with your audience is the most powerful commercial asset in media.

Today, audiences don’t just download podcasts. They discover them on YouTube. They watch them. They share clips. They engage across ecosystems. And yet, much of the industry is still measuring a multi-platform reality with a single-platform metric.

In this fast-moving session, Dan Misener, Co-Founder, Bumper, Tom Webster, Partner, Sounds Profitable, and Christiana Brenton, CRO, FlightStory, tackle what comes next: how to measure real reach, real engagement, and real value in a fragmented world—and what it means for creators, platforms, and advertisers.

Moderated by Steven Goldstein, CEO, Amplifi Media and Professor, New York University.

Experience a masterclass in high-impact storytelling with Spencer Matthews and Brittany Clevenger (Senior Growth Marketing Director at BetterHelp) as they take the stage to break down their game-changing "Say It Louder" initiative. Hosted by the team from the High Performance network (Untapped, On The Mend, High Performance Podcast), Spencer will dive into how he’s transformed his platform into a catalyst for real-world change, moving beyond traditional content to spark a national conversation on men's mental health. For creators, this is an exclusive look at how to secure and scale a powerhouse partnership with a brand like BetterHelp to create purpose-led content that doesn't just reach millions, it changes lives.

The definition of a “podcast” is changing. For JamPot, audio is just one part of a much bigger opportunity—where talent, video and social are what drive growth, relevance and revenue. In this session, founder Jamie Laing and CEO Craig Strachan (moderated by Lizzy Pollott) unpack how they’re rethinking the model: developing talent that works on camera, building formats designed for social, and turning shows into multi-platform brands. From what makes a show actually travel online, to how video and social are reshaping monetisation, this is a practical look at how podcasts are being rebuilt for today’s audience and what that means for creators, platforms and brands.

What does it take to evolve a podcast inside a 25-year-old media brand and make it culturally relevant again?

In this candid fireside conversation, JB Gill and Louise Burke unpack how The Netmums Podcast has been rebuilt for 2026 not just as an audio show, but as a multi-platform content engine designed for social discovery, video-first consumption and modern audience expectations.

From sex scandals to financial ruin to profound personal loss, How to Fail has featured some of the most jaw‑dropping confessions in podcasting.

In this session, novelist and podcaster Elizabeth Day revisits the moments that left audiences stunned, and explains why these stories landed so powerfully. She explores how trust is built on both sides of the mic, where the ethical line sits, and what happens when guests are brave enough to tell the truth.

This panel will examine how concepts are validated earlier, how distribution decisions are made from day one, and how creators and networks are using these tools to make the right bets for building sustainable media businesses in an increasingly algorithm driven ecosystem.