The "HBO of podcasting" finally emerges

"For the past few years, podcasting (at least backstage) has been in a bit of a rut. The audience keeps growing, people are listening longer, and many creators are making great work. But the business side has felt stalled. The industry remains tethered to an ad-heavy model that frustrates buyers, sellers, and creators in equal measure. This coming year, something is going to crack. 2026 is the year the long-promised "HBO of podcasting" finally begins to take shape."

"For more than a decade, "the HBO of podcasting" has been the podcast industry's favorite mirage: part inspiration, part aspiration, part marketing shorthand, part journalistic crutch. Alex Blumberg actually said it out loud in Gimlet's early days, a perfectly earnest founder's spell meant to conjure prestige and budget. I used a version of it myself around the same time while building Audible Originals, mostly as a way to signal ambition in a language press and investors already understood."

"But for all that puffery, none of the efforts I mentioned actually pulled it off. There were fits and starts - and a few had a good year or two. But no one nailed it in a sustained (and sustainable) way. HBO itself didn't know what it was building until it was in the middle of building it. Read Felix Gillette and John Koblin's terrific book and the accidental nature of HBO"

Podcasting audience growth, longer listening times, and strong creative work coexist with a stalled business model anchored in advertising. Buyers, sellers, and creators find the ad-heavy economy frustrating and limiting. For years the phrase "HBO of podcasting" served as an aspirational shorthand for prestige, higher budgets, and subscription-style ambitions. Multiple companies and founders reached for that model, experimenting with polish, purpose, and paid products, but none achieved sustained, scalable success. Historical attempts produced fits and starts rather than durable transformation. The narrative suggests 2026 will mark a meaningful shift toward a different, more sustainable podcast business model.

Read at Nieman Lab