Definitely agree on all three of those points, but don’t think they’re incompatible with the overall thesis. I don’t think that the big brokers in the podcast advertising space do a great job (or perhaps they simply don’t have the resources to do a thorough job) i) at involving lots of different and deep pocketed sponsors, and ii) getting them paired up to a wide variety of shows. I understand why people use brokers, but I think it typifies an industry failing more than anything.

On your second point, I’d love to do more compelling research to present ROI data to advertisers. I make this pitch all the time and have to compare it against other forms of media advertising, but you’re right, it’s hard without being able to demonstrate effectiveness. Again this is something we need to get better at as an industry — most podcasts could self-finance if their advertising was prices at, say, the same as Facebook adverts, and that’s a pretty low bar.

And agree entirely on your final point. As podcasters, we need to make better adverts as well as better shows! It’s quite clear when people do it well, so we have plenty of models to work from.

But yeah, all of these points are worth addressing but they’re all things that I think should and must be addressed as the industry continues to professionalise.