Everyone experiences anxiety on some level, so why do creators and brands steer clear of the topic? Morra Aarons-Mele, a.k.a. “The Anxious Achiever,” is here to explain why addressing tough topics can be a win for audiences, creators, and a marketer’s bottom line.

This week on The Media Roundtable, Daniel Granger (CEO & Founder, Oxford Road) welcomes Aarons-Mele, host of The Anxious Achiever podcast, as well as an author, Harvard professor, presidential campaign strategist, and totally-not-anxious person. Together, they examine the challenges of building a business around an identity, and discuss why brands should align with creators who are brave enough to talk about difficult topics

“Don't start a podcast to become rich. But if you have a specific thing that you want to chew over and [want to] get access to people, do it. I can't normally call up the Surgeon General and be like, ‘Hey, you want to talk about loneliness?’ But with a podcast, I can.”

- Morra Aarons-Mele (Founder, MHL Partners; Host, The Anxious Achiever)

For years, marketers have used downloads to help determine their podcast spend. But now that podcasts exist in so many different formats and spaces—from long-form Netflix videos to short-form YouTube Shorts clips to live shows—it’s harder than ever to determine audience size. With so many platforms in play, how can creators know exactly what they’re selling? More importantly, how can buyers know what they’re getting?

This week, Dan Granger (CEO & Founder, Oxford Road) hosts Steve Goldstein (Founder & CEO, Amplifi Media; Adjunct Professor, NYU)on Media Roundtable to talk about how $1-2B in additional growth can be unlocked if we ditch downloads and create a new universal and consistent metric.

Want the DL on downloads? Join Dan and Steve as they debate new methods of measurement and discuss what buyers need to be paying attention to as podcasting moves into its next phase.

“The money is going to flow to where the audience is. We have the audience. We have great shows…If we can verify the audience and present it in a unified sort of way, that's where we need to be.”

-Steve Goldstein (Founder & CEO, Amplifi Media; Adjunct Professor, NYU)

For more than a year now, the Alliance for Measurement in Podcasting, or AMP, has been working to create new frameworks for podcast measurement. In this week’s Media Roundtable, we’re announcing some of our latest findings.

Dan Granger (CEO & Founder, Oxford Road) and Giles Martin (EVP -Strategy, Oxford Road) welcome Pete Birsinger (CEO & Founder, Podscribe) to discuss the problem with downloads, AMP’s internal tug-of-war, and the new standard metrics that could help grow the industry.

“ This type of evolution should put podcasting on a better footing to compete with other media channels for an enormous part of advertising dollars.”

• Pete Birsinger (CEO & Founder, Podscribe)