Jason is co-founder of The Podcast Show, London — this interview has been lightly edited for style and readability
Sam Sethi: The Podcast Show 2025 in London - it’s on the doorstep. It’s coming very soon. What are the dates?
Jason Carter: I can certainly feel that at the moment! It’s the 21st and 22nd of May in Islington in London.
It’s our fourth year coming up. We’re really overwhelmed with where we are with it. It feels this year that people know it’s here to stay, and people have experienced it - word of mouth globally about the show is clearly evident. So numbers-wise, last year we were way ahead of the previous year in terms of delegate attendees. And this year we’ve surpassed that again.
SS: So give us some highlights. You’ve got two new sponsors for the year. Who are they?
JC: Our headline partners this year are Global and iHeart. So delighted to have those guys on board. Both of them actually have been in partnership with the show in previous years - Global have been with us from the start, and iHeart were involved last year. They’re both coming in together as headline partners, really sending the message that there’s power in partnerships, and that’s how they’re knitting themselves together.
In terms of our official partners, we’ve got a lot of retention; so the likes of BBC Sounds, and Audioboom and Spotify and Amazon, et cetera: but lots of new people coming in as well. YouTube are back after a year off. Netflix are in. BBC Studios have come in. Delighted that Goalhanger are in. But great to see more international partners folding in too. We’re in a good space.
And with all of them, I think what’s really important to say is that they’re coming to the show - they’re not just exhibiting or having an activation. We’ve actually slightly reduced the number of sessions that we have in the show. And this is from feedback from everyone in the industry. “Too much going on” has been a bit of an issue with previous years. When I go to conferences, I don’t go to eight sessions in a row. You need to pause for air. So, we are creating these moments for pauses for air. As we evolve as a show, we’re continuously talking to the industry to hear what they want and then shape it around that.
SS: You’ve got quite a few celebrity speakers. Gary Lineker from Goalhanger is going to be there. What are Goalhanger going to be doing at the event?
JC: Like I said earlier, in terms of partners at the show, we don’t really look at having partners as a badging exercise. We really want proactive activities that are happening that benefit them, but also make sure that they’re giving value back to all the delegates that attend.
Goalhanger are hosting three sessions. They’ve got a suite, and for those, again, not familiar with the show, we’ve got this fantastic Victorian venue, which used to be a Royal Mail sorting office. It looks stunning. When we get people traveling from outside the UK, they always think it looks like the Harry Potter train station. Circling and overlooking the show floor is about 20 suites. They’re almost like boxes that you might see at a console or whatever. And Goalhanger have a suite there alongside - well, there’s quite a few significant partners that are hosting in their own suites overlooking the show floor. So Goalhanger are doing that as well as a number of different sessions.
And the other suites that are partnered are with Global, with iHeart, with BBC Studios, with Amazon, Art19, Sony, Triton Digital. So when you walk into this show, you’re just hit by the world of podcasting, very visibly, as you know.
But people come with different agendas. Some are here to meet brands and agencies and host the reception and target particular delegates that are at the show. Others may be brand new, independent, starting out creators. It’s their first foray into the business and they want to just get tips and advice. Or some might be independent podcast creators that are well on their way but wanting to kind of finesse and look at the springboard to develop their businesses.
We’ve got a couple of new features this year in the show. The first one is an international gallery and that’s going to be on the show floor. And during the day we’re going to have reflections from different individuals from around the world around their particular territory. So we’ve got people speaking from Latin America, we’ve got some from North Africa, some from Australia, a couple of parts of Europe. So we’ve got this new space there.
We’ve got an indie business stage: some of the feedback we had last year is that, you know, there are lots of people starting out here and wanting to develop a business. And so we’ve got a programme run with Audio UK.
The challenge is being able to deliver to all those different parts of the podcast community in one show. We’re not always going to get it right. We’re not always going to cater for everyone, but we’re doing our best.
We are on course for a fantastic show, not just with the delegates and the attendees, but also with the partners and exhibitors that are coming to the show. We’re bracing ourselves!
Tickets are still available at The Podcast Show’s website; and the code PODNEWS10 saves money on selected passes.