On September 30 and October 1, Bloomberg Screentime 2026 returned to Los Angeles for its fourth year. Bloomberg’s team of editors and reporters hosted the event, which featured studio chiefs, streaming executives, creators, and investors talking about where culture, capital, and technology meet. While the event wasn’t explicitly about podcasting, the medium came up repeatedly and on several levels. Across two days, the sessions kept circling back to one question: who owns the relationship with the audience? The answer: the creators and podcasters who built that relationship themselves on their own terms.
The Podglomerate had a front row seat to Bloomberg Screentime 2026. If you missed out on this exclusive event, check out our list of the best podcast events and conferences to see what’s coming up next. And if you’re trying to figure out where your show fits in an increasingly crowded media landscape, then check out our services. Subscribe to our newsletter for ongoing insights on what’s new and trending in podcasting from the people and companies shaping the industry’s future.
TAKEAWAY #1: The host’s personality and relationships are the product, even when it comes to ad reads
When host Conan O’Brien stepped down from nearly three decades in late night television, Team Coco’s COO Adam Sachs suggested he try making a podcast. That suggestion became Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend. When Sachs and Team Coco’s executive producer Jeff Ross told him it would only work if he read the ads, O’Brien had one condition: he would read them as himself. That one condition became the podcast’s commercial engine. Listeners don’t skip his ads, he said, because he does them himself, sometimes mocking the ad copy outright. And no brand has ever pushed back.
“The secret to my success, other than being crazily lucky, is that I rigidly always maintain my persona,” O’Brien told Bloomberg reporter Ashley Carman. A sincere endorsement from him, he joked, simply wouldn’t work, which is a clear real world case for why host-read ads command a premium over programmatic inventory. Brands pay for the relationship between a host and the audience, and that relationship breaks when the host sounds like someone else. (Carman also writes Bloomberg Soundbite, a must-follow publication that we have included in our round-up of best podcast newsletters.)
O’Brien also explained why he sold Team Coco and his podcast to SiriusXM for a reported $150 million. After his rocky exit from NBC, he still saw real value in a larger media partner that offered support and new opportunities while also being protective. His interviews also skip the pre-interview, a strategy O’Brien credits for long, leisurely conversations with A-list celebrities including Al Pacino, Paul McCartney, and Mick Jagger. It’s a reminder that great podcast interviews depend on presence just as much as preparation.
Steven Bartlett, host of The Diary of a CEO, made a similar point from the business side in his session with Bloomberg anchor Ed Ludlow. He said he once turned down a deal that would have put 12 ads in his episodes, because his own team could earn the same money running two ads with better information and stronger brand relationships. Fewer, better ad reads beat sheer inventory volume, a principle worth building into any podcast monetization strategy. That kind of ownership over the audience relationship is exactly what companies and the big streaming giants now want a piece of for themselves.
TAKEAWAY #2: Streamers want podcasts, but only on their own terms
Netflix now ranks among the top three platforms people go to for podcasts, so Ted Sarandos’ take on them really stood out. In his session with Lucas Shaw, managing editor of media, entertainment and sports for Bloomberg, he called podcasts a very small investment and a small addition to what Netflix does, with most of its spending still going to professionally produced programming. “We’re not in the UGC business,” the co-CEO said modestly, adding that Netflix isn’t trying to bring over the whole population of podcast creators. Later, during a live taping of The Town, host Matt Belloni put Netflix in the “hold” column, calling its podcast and lower-cost content push into question.
President and chief creative officer Dana Walden described Disney’s strategy as increasing engagement and reach on Disney+, where engagement grew by double digits over the past year. Creator content is part of that plan. “These young creators, they want to work with our IP,” Walden said, and she wants more of their content on the platform. Her reasoning was clear: “Technology [has] set their sights on our business, and we must survive and thrive and grow.”
Casey Bloys, chairman and CEO of HBO and HBO Max, offered a different perspective during his conversation with Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw. When asked about HBO’s YouTube strategy, Bloys pointed to Issa Rae as proof that digital platforms are a real talent pipeline, but he warned against mission creep from a marketing point of view. “Know what you’re good at,” he said. “Be very clear about why you’re doing it and what you expect from it.” Chasing engagement by putting a lot of content on the platform, he added, is how “you can kind of lose the thread.” Podcasters who have a video podcast strategy in place should take that as direction to stay focused.
The overall takeaway here is that streamers are open to podcasts and creator content, but as a small part of their much larger business. Landing your show on one of these platforms is great for distribution, but it shouldn’t be the main focus of your strategy. Meanwhile, the creators with the most leverage are the ones who have already built an audience and aren’t waiting for a streaming platform to come to them.
TAKEAWAY #3: The biggest creators are building studios
Content creator and CrunchLabs founder Mark Rober told Bloomberg’s Emily Chang that the era of going viral like “Keyboard Cat” is over. CrunchLabs has around 200 people on staff, and Rober said that the top 50 to 100 creators increasingly look like production companies and studios. Distribution on Netflix gave CrunchLabs a meaningful bump, but YouTube remains home for Rober because the platform runs on authenticity, and audiences 25 and under care far more about YouTubers than Hollywood stars. Rober’s long-term goal is building a brand that doesn’t rely on him as the focal point.
Bartlett, whose show just passed 20 million subscribers on YouTube, said the podcast that people see is only the tip of the iceberg. Underneath that sit roughly 150 full-time employees, a testing platform, and a production infrastructure that includes his company’s own hosting platform, Flightcast. Instead of guessing whether his audience wants audio or video, short-form or long-form content, the show lives everywhere, using a smart link that detects a listener’s device and routes them to the right platform. The show also hired a full-time medical PhD to fact-check episodes, and Bartlett said at least five major podcasts have since copied that blueprint. He also spoke about how translation has changed the show’s reach. This month, 30 million people will hear it in a language other than English, and they listen for longer periods of time. This is just on YouTube, and Bartlett said Spotify will follow in the coming months. Together, this combination of tools and resources illustrate a podcast repurposing playbook running at studio scale.
The lesson here for podcasters is that scale comes from infrastructure, not just from the host. That infrastructure includes the use of AI.
TAKEAWAY #4: Hollywood’s AI conversation has moved from panic to pragmatism
Kathleen Kennedy, producer of the Kennedy/Marshall Company, framed AI as a responsibility rather than a threat during her session with Brad Stone, editor of Bloomberg Businessweek. Whether AI displaces people or generates new jobs, she said, “it’s on us as an industry to work with the next generation to articulate those paths for those entering into the business.” Ben Affleck, CEO of Artists Equity, was even more direct, saying he doesn’t worry about Skynet, and he doesn’t worry that AI will make the entertainment business go away.
For podcasters, this should be a familiar refrain. AI tools for podcast production and for marketing can already handle the tedious parts of these processes, but no one suggested AI could replace what O’Brien, Rober, and Bartlett have built, which is a voice and a relationship that audiences trust.
Conclusion
Bloomberg Screentime 2026 showed Hollywood paying closer attention to podcasting than ever, while the podcasters and creators on stage described advantages that no studio can easily buy: an unmistakable host voice, a direct line to the audience, and the infrastructure to show up wherever that audience lives. Disney’s Dana Walden said it well during her session: “In this business, big things can always happen unexpectedly, good or bad.” As we heard at On Air Fest Podcast Business Summit, The Podcast Show, SXSW, and Podcast Movement this year, the shows built on their own terms are the ones ready for whatever comes next.
At The Podglomerate, we help creators, brands, and networks navigate these shifts, from podcast production to audience growth and marketing to monetization. If this year’s Bloomberg Screentime has you thinking about where your show fits among creator studios and streaming platforms, reach out to us. And make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for more tips, news, and analysis on the podcast industry.
