Sponsored by Lean & Loaf. Your New Year’s Resolutions: lose weight, grow your podcast, hire the best video podcast partner in the industry. Lean & Loaf can help with two of these.

• Exclusive: A website called PodcastAdBlock is using AI to copy popular podcasts and resell them without the ads. Shows from publishers like Spotify, NPR, the New York Times, Slate, iHeart, and New York Magazine are all promoted on the website. We've taken a full look at the product, and how much it might be costing us.
• In India, The Economic Times discovers that some guests pay a fee between US $15,000 and $30,000 to be interviewed on "some of India's most-watched podcasts", and these paid appearances are rarely disclosed to audiences. That's against the law in India (and against FTC rules in the US).
• MagellanAI published its rankers for December 2025. Amazon was the biggest advertiser; Audacy has returned as a top ten publisher; and the top five podcasts remain unchanged.

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