Comscore expands Proximic audio targeting to Spotify, SiriusXM, and Acast

The immediate implication is the shift of podcasting from an 'experimental' buy to a machine-readable component of the omnichannel stack. By standardizing targeting and brand safety across Spotify, SiriusXM, and top HOSTS, Comscore is removing the fragmentated manual workflows that historically limited podcasting's share of programmatic budgets. Within the broader ecosystem, this puts audio on technical parity with CTV, potentially unlocking long-tail inventory that was previously difficult to verify at scale. Watch for whether this infrastructure raises CPMs for mid-tier creators who move from ‘generic comedy’ tags to specific, high-intent contextual categories.

The push for audio parity with digital video comes as podcast ad revenue is projected to exceed $5 billion in 2025 and $5.5 billion in 2026, though growth is slowing from double-digit rates seen in 2024, per Moonshot News (February 2025). The industry is currently battling a significant ‘attention-to-spend’ gap: while audio accounts for roughly 31% of consumers’ total media time, it secures only 9% of total advertising budgets, according to Triton Digital (December 2025). This discrepancy has spurred large-scale infrastructure rebuilds across major players to support automated buying. For instance, Spotify reported in April 2026 that biddable programmatic channels now represent more than one-third of its ad-supported revenue following a multi-year stack overhaul, according to company earnings. Similarly, Libsyn reported its advertising revenue grew 48% year-over-year in 2025 as it expanded programmatic access to creators of all sizes, per Podnews (March 2026). The focus has shifted from simple downloads to episode-level intelligence, a transition supported by Magellan AI data showing that average podcast ad loads reached 8.82% in late 2025. These technical integrations are designed to mitigate concerns about brand safety and attribution that have historically kept 80% of engagement from being properly tracked or monetized, per Podscribe (March 2026). As the open internet programmatic market grows, these transcript-based identifiers provide the necessary signals for agentic AI and automated buying agents to include audio in holistic media plans alongside traditional display and streaming video.