Acast

Arena Group Rebrands as Paradium.AI After Weak Q2

The Arena Group, a publicly traded publisher that owns brands such as Parade, Men’s Journal and The Street, announced it is rebranding as Paradium.AI while reporting weak second-quarter results. In conjunction with its earnings the company said it refinanced debt, acquired AI-content generator InfoSentience and launched Cutter Studios, an AI-assisted content-production platform. The company reported revenue halved year-over-year to $22 million, gross margin fell to 39%, income dropped 86%, and adjusted EBITDA fell to $4.4 million. Paradium carries about $98 million in debt, $11.2 million in cash and a cumulative deficit of $357 million. Comscore data cited in the story showed portfolio traffic declined 27% year-over-year (June 2025 to June 2026). CEO Paul Edmonson framed the move as a pivot from a search-dependent publisher to an AI-powered technology company.

Acast Classics: Interview with Carrie Jade Does Not Exist

In this interview, journalist and co-host of Carrie Jade Does Not Exist, Katherine Denkinson, talks to us about her experience making the podcast, working with Sue Perkins and the legacy the show has garnered since its release.

New AMP Consortium Seeks Podcast Measurement Standard

A new industry consortium called the Alliance for Measurement in Podcasting (AMP) has launched, led by Sounds Profitable and backed notably by Spotify, releasing 48-page "accords" that propose standardized definitions and approaches for podcast measurement. AMP recommends defining a "play" as 30 seconds of listenership, counting an "impression" when any part of an ad is played, and using anonymized playback data or a shared industry clean room for attribution. The article argues the podcast ad market (roughly $2 billion) remains highly fragmented due to platform behaviors (Apple, Spotify, Google) and the growth of video podcasting, host-read/baked-in ads, and platform-specific ad servers, making programmatic reach and reliable attribution difficult today.