Russ: Your favorite host isn't just recommending a mattress... they're performing a miniature one-act play about the mattress.
Nadia: [beat] I'm Nadia.
Russ: And I'm Russ.
Nadia: And this is Feed Drop for Wednesday, September 16th, 2026.
Russ: We've got three big stories shaking up the podcast world today.
Nadia: We're starting with Ira Glass, who has a theory on why podcast ads are a completely different beast.
Russ: Then, a UK podcast network just sold a stadium's worth of tickets to a live festival.
Nadia: And the special effects wizards behind Lord of the Rings are getting into AI, with a little help from Netflix.
Nadia: So let's start with those ads. At the recent Podcast Week conference, Ira Glass of This American Life fame argued that podcasting is a medium where everything goes deeper... and that includes the advertising.
Russ: Okay, so 'deeper' ads. Does that just mean longer? Or that I can't fast-forward through them because the host baked them into the middle of a sentence?
Nadia: Not exactly. His point is about intimacy and integration. Because you trust the host, a host-read ad feels more like a personal recommendation than a jingle from a giant corporation.
Russ: That's a very generous interpretation. To me, it feels like my friend suddenly trying to sell me a meal kit. It's just a better sales pitch, isn't it?
Nadia: It is a sales pitch, but it works. This is the engine that runs the whole industry, Russ. That’s what he means by 'deeper'—it’s woven into the show's fabric, not just tacked on.
Russ: So I'm supposed to feel good about being sold to, just because it feels more 'authentic'?
Nadia: It means the line between content and commerce is blurring, and in podcasting, that's being framed as a feature, not a bug. It's how your favorite indie shows keep the lights on.
Russ: I guess. As long as the show itself is good, I can tolerate the one-act play about socks.
Russ: Alright, let's move on to something I do understand: live shows. A UK podcast company, Goalhanger, just threw a festival called 'The Rest is Fest'...
Nadia: And get this: according to Podnews, they sold 26,000 tickets last weekend. Twenty-six. Thousand.
Russ: Whoa. Okay, that's not a sideshow, that's a full-blown music festival. For podcasts?
Nadia: For 22 of their shows, yeah. This is huge. It proves a network brand can be strong enough to draw massive real-world crowds, opening up a major new revenue stream.
Russ: I'm always skeptical of live podcasts. Is the show actually good, or are people just paying to be in the same room as the hosts? Because I've seen some that were just... two people on stools talking, but with worse audio.
Nadia: [laughs] That's fair. But you can't deny the business implications. For years, everyone wondered how to make money beyond ads. Live shows were a nice bonus. This suggests they could be a main pillar of the business.
Russ: So, does this mean my favorite niche history podcast is about to book an arena and charge me a hundred bucks for a ticket?
Nadia: It means the most successful shows are becoming full-fledged media brands with a touring component, just like a band. It's about building a community that wants to show up in person. That's the holy grail.
Nadia: Alright, our last story takes us from live humans to artificial intelligence. Variety reports that Peter Jackson's Weta FX is headlining a talk on AI at an event sponsored by Netflix.
Russ: Hold on. Weta? The people who made Gollum? What on earth do they have to do with podcasting?
Nadia: They're at the Busan International Film Festival, at a program called Creative Asia. The topic? AI's future in content creation. And with video becoming so central to podcasting, this is absolutely relevant to us.
Russ: Oh, I am not ready for this. [sighs] So my favorite hosts are going to be replaced by deepfakes and their scripts are going to be written by ChatGPT's great-grandson? No thank you.
Nadia: That's the dystopia, sure. But the optimistic take is AI as a tool, not a replacement. Imagine AI-powered editing that nails every 'um' and 'ah,' or tools that help animate video podcasts for a fraction of the cost.
Russ: A fraction of the cost... which means more money for the platform, not the creator. And it all starts to sound the same. I want human error. I want the weird pauses!
Nadia: This one's complicated. For creators, a wave of powerful new tools is coming. For listeners, it means we have to be more critical than ever about what we're hearing… and who, or what, is behind it.
Russ: Great. So on top of deciding if an ad is 'authentic,' now I have to figure out if the host is, too.
Nadia: Alright, let's recap the big three. Ira Glass says podcast ads are getting 'deeper,' blending right into the shows themselves.
Russ: A UK podcast festival sold 26,000 tickets, proving live shows are a serious business now.
Nadia: And Weta and Netflix are pushing AI into the content pipeline, which is both exciting and a little terrifying.
Russ: Hey Nadia, before we go, you mentioned Podglomerate in a couple of those stories. I feel like I'm seeing that name everywhere.
Nadia: It's a total sign of the times. The industry's grown up. Now there's a whole ecosystem of agencies for production, marketing, YouTube strategy... It's not just a hobby anymore.
Russ: Right. Though some of the best shows still sound like they were made in a garage. And I mean that as a compliment.
Nadia: And that is our show! Thanks for listening to Feed Drop.
Russ: We'll be back tomorrow. And for what we're actually listening to, I finally dove into The Evaporated—it's a series about people in Japan who just... vanish. Haunting, but absolutely incredible storytelling.
This show is made with AI: the hosts’ voices are synthetic and the scripts are AI-assisted. Every story links to its original source.