A hit podcast just signed up for a radio show. That's backwards, right?

For decades, radio was where you started and podcasting was where you ended up once terrestrial radio felt too small. Giggly Squad, the popular podcast, just flipped that script by partnering with SiriusXM to build out a serious radio component. And according to the people making these deals, that's not some nostalgia play. It's the next move in a much bigger shift happening across podcasting right now.

I've spent years building things from scratch while traveling full-time, and I've learned one thing: when an industry starts blurring its own lines, pay attention. That's exactly what's happening here.

SiriusXM wants to be, in the words of one of its own, "a one-stop shop" for creators. Not just a place to host a show. A place to handle everything — distribution, ad sales, radio, video, the works.

They're not the only ones racing there. Substack just opened early access signups for dynamic ad insertion and is planning programmatic sponsorships for creators in early 2027. Beehiiv moved even faster, rolling out dynamic ad insertion, campaign management tools, and programmatic ad access just last week.

From Networks to Ecosystems

Ainsley Rossitto, Beehiiv's head of podcast, explained why this matters for creators: it hands them more control. They can run their own sponsorship campaigns, slot fresh ads into old episodes that are still getting listens, and open up unsold ad space to programmatic buyers when there's a good match.

Translation: creators no longer have to beg a network for scraps. They can build their own little business engine underneath the content.

That's the part that gets me curious. Podcast networks used to be gatekeepers. Now the platforms are competing to hand creators the keys and get out of the way. Why? Because the creators who build real audiences don't want middlemen anymore. They want tools.

The Video Pivot Nobody Saw Coming

Here's another twist. Podcasts, which used to be the ultimate "just listen while you drive" medium, have been pivoting hard to video since the mid-2020s. Sounds Profitable's research found only 17% of Americans now expect a podcast to be audio-only.

Substack's head of video, Zach Taylor, told Digiday that in April 2024, half of their top 350 highest-earning creators were producing both audio and video. By February 2025? That number jumped to 82%.

A guy named Barletta put it simply: "Your podcast doesn't have to be on video, but you have to have video." Why? Because clips drive discovery. They circulate on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram — and 84% of people who watch podcast clips say those clips turned them into regular listeners, at least some of the time.

SiriusXM's Sachs pointed to Team Coco's YouTube channel as proof. It has over 9 million subscribers, but on any given episode, half the viewers aren't even subscribed. YouTube's algorithm is pushing the content to new people who might like it — something that simply didn't exist back in the old RSS-feed-only days.

Back to Radio — On Purpose

So why would a hot podcast want radio now? Sachs says it's not about chasing a shrinking audience. It's about reaching a completely different one. Radio listeners skew differently in age and habits than podcast listeners, and SiriusXM doesn't see any overlap risk — they call it incremental reach, not cannibalization.

Giggly Squad is getting a "significant radio component," on top of short-form content plans SiriusXM is building for creators who never bothered with long-form shows in the first place.

What This Means for You

Whether you're building a podcast, a newsletter, or just figuring out what to do with your own curiosity and a microphone, the lesson here is the same one I keep running into on the road: don't assume the old path is the only path. The people winning in podcasting right now are the ones willing to mix formats, break old assumptions, and ask, "What happens if I try this differently?"

Giggly Squad didn't shrink by going to radio. They expanded. That's worth remembering next time you think you've already found the "right" way to do something.

Source: Digiday

Earlier in this series: Now, “Liquid Content” Is A Thing In France, Too