A coalition of platforms, advertisers, and talent agencies has settled on a single definition of a podcast, one pillar of the AMP Accords, a cross-platform measurement framework released Thursday by the Alliance for Measurement in Podcasting after a year of work.
Oxford Road convened AMP in July 2025 after concluding that inconsistent metrics were costing the industry more than $1 billion in advertiser confidence.
The podcast advertising agency, which merged with Veritone One in 2024, assembled 12 voting members spanning platforms, advertisers, publishers, and creators to build the standard, including representatives from Spotify, SiriusXM Media, DraftKings, BetterHelp, Libsyn, and United Talent Agency. Notably absent from the roster are any of the terrestrial radio groups that operate some of podcasting’s largest networks, including iHeartMedia, NPR, Audacy, and Cumulus Media’s Westwood One.
The final verdict: if it works with your eyes closed, it counts, whether the format is audio or video, whether it is RSS-distributed or not.
In addition, the Accords propose a new exposure metric called a Podcast Play, requiring at least 30 seconds of consumption before a listen or view counts, a shift the group frames as correcting for downloads that were never actually heard. AMP is positioning the play count as a companion metric to be phased in gradually rather than a replacement for existing systems, so publisher numbers do not shift overnight.
Spotify has already moved to a 30-second play definition, a step AMP cites as early momentum behind the standard.
On attribution, the framework calls for randomized holdout groups, the same incrementality methodology advertisers already use to measure return on Meta, Google, and Amazon campaigns. AMP says the approach is intended to give brands more confidence in podcast return on investment than prior attribution models offered.
Oxford Road Chief Executive Officer Dan Granger said, “The hard part was never writing the framework. The real accomplishment was getting companies with competing interests to agree on anything at all. We set out to build something the whole industry could actually use, knowing not everyone would love every part of it. There will be debate, and there should be.”
FlightStory Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer Christiana Brenton said, “Podcasting is no longer defined by audio alone. The same show can be experienced through headphones, YouTube or connected TV, often reaching entirely different audiences. The industry needs measurement standards that reflect that reality instead of applying different standards to each. For too long, creators have been shortchanged by inconsistent measurement across formats, making it harder to demonstrate the full value of the audiences they’ve built and harder for brands to invest with confidence.”
AMP plans to bring its findings to the IAB for further technical review. The full report is now available.
