Partnerships and ad buys with prestige names confer status internally in the businesses that make the buy. “No one ever got fired for choosing IBM.”

Your audience doesn’t care that you paid to be on the top / hot channel. They care that you met them where they are.

Vanity / scale metrics are lazy proxies and ladder climbing fodder.

44% of the U.S. podcast audience who do not listen to shows within the top 1,000 have ever purchased a product as a result of hearing it on the medium, similar to the rate (47%) of U.S. podcast listeners to shows in the top 1,000 who say the same. 

via Edison Research