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Podcast Festival Doubles Down on Industry Growth, Adds Scripted-Audio Pitch Circuit

LONDON, 24 November 2025 — The organisers of the annual Podcast Festival today unveiled a major expansion for its 2026 edition: four parallel industry tracks and a stand-alone Scripted Audio Pitch Competition that will award £20 000 in production grants. The changes, announced ahead of next month’s delegate on-sale, position the conference—already Europe’s largest gathering of podcast professionals—as a launch pad for the next wave of narrative audio.

“The market has out-grown a single-track programme,” said Festival Director Claire Redmond. “With advertising spend up 26 % year-on-year and scripted titles driving 38 % of all new listens, we needed space where commissioners, tech vendors and creators can drill into the verticals that matter.”

The 2026 agenda will run Content & Editorial, Revenue & Monetisation, AI & Production Tools, and Global Distribution across three days at the Barbican Centre, 14–16 June. Each track will feature closed-door briefings from platform buyers: Amazon Music, BBC Sounds, Spotify and the newly launched YouTube Podcasts vertical, which according to Ofcom’s 2025 Audio Report now reaches 18 % of U.K. weekly podcast listeners, double its 2023 share.

Central to the revamp is the Scripted Audio Pitch Competition, a juried event that replaces last year’s general-pitch session. Up to 12 finalists will present 15-minute proof-of-concepts to a panel that includes Bloomsbury Publishing audio head Rachel Rayner, QCode co-founder Sandra Yeh, and BBC Drama commissioning editor Ben Irving. A £15 000 production grant goes to the winner; £5 000 and in-kind post-production are reserved for the runner-up. All finalists receive complimentary two-night accommodation and a fast-track pass to Sheffield DocFest’s audio marketplace, extending the festival’s partnership pipeline.

“Scripted podcasts are entering a golden-age financing window,” Redmond noted. “Global revenues are forecast to hit US $39.6 bn in 2026 (PwC, 2025) and 61 % of that growth will come from immersive or scripted formats. The pitch competition gives independents a visible path to that capital without surrendering IP.”

The festival is also responding to creator demand for data transparency. New for 2026, Nielsen Podcast Measurement will release a live dashboard showing real-time audience drop-off across the 120 sessions, giving speakers and sponsors anonymised benchmarks on engagement—intelligence that previously cost studios upwards of £50 000 per study.

Market signals support the push. A Variety Intelligence Platform survey last month found 44 % of U.S. advertisers plan to increase scripted-podcast budgets in 2026, outpacing the 31 % growth slated for talk formats. Meanwhile, U.K. production hours for scripted audio rose 22 % in 2025 versus 12 % for non-scripted, according to Radiocentre figures released 2 November.

“We’re past the ‘land-grab’ phase,” said Redmond. “Now it’s about sustainable IP, measurable ROI and global scalability. These tracks give delegates the tactical playbooks—whether that’s dynamic ad insertion, AI voice-clone clearance or windowing strategies for South-Asian markets.”

Delegate registration opens 1 December; early-bird passes are capped at 750. The Scripted Audio Pitch Competition is free to enter, with a 28 February 2026 deadline. Full guidelines are live at podcastfestival.com/pitch.

About Podcast Festival

Founded in 2018, Podcast Festival is Europe’s largest conference and marketplace for the on-demand audio industry. The 2025 edition hosted 3 200 attendees from 42 countries, 180 speakers and 1 600 scheduled business meetings, generating an estimated £11 m in post-show production deals.