Acast UK Launches Industry-First YouTube Program

Acast, the world’s largest independent podcast company, is launching the UK's biggest premium audio and video podcast offering, delivering a dramatically enhanced video proposition on YouTube.

The new program and partnership with Little Dot Studios - leading social media agency, digital media network, and multi-platform production company providing the YouTube infrastructure, growth support and scaled ad inventory - is built in direct response to podcaster needs. It will allow Acast's UK creators - including top-tier podcasting talent like Fearne Cotton, Jake Humphrey, and Peter Crouch - to unlock significant new revenue streams, as well as growth for their video podcasts on YouTube via a dedicated accelerator program developed by Little Dot Studios. Advertisers will be able to directly access those high-value audiences via premium and brand-safe video sponsorships and targeted video ads.

Over 20 of the UK's largest, most influential and commercially-successful podcasts will pioneer this new enhanced offering. Their shows already dominate the UK podcast charts, and now advertisers can access their popular, high-quality YouTube channels with deeply engaged audiences across a breadth of genres including News & Politics, Comedy, Sport, Wellness and Parenting. These launch shows deliver a massive aggregated audience, comprising more than 45 million monthly plays across their combined audio feeds and YouTube channels, including:

• 90s Baby Show: Fred, Temi, and VP’s sharp MOBO Award-winning conversations on music, Black British culture and the 90s-baby mindset.
• Abroad in Japan Podcast: Chris Broad and Pete Donaldson's quirky and hugely successful perspective on Japanese travel and culture, connected to the multi-award winning YouTube channel.
• After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal: Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling take audiences to the shadiest corners of the past, unpicking history’s spookiest, strangest, and most sinister stories.
• Dan Snow's History Hit: British Historian and TV presenter Dan Snow’s deep dive into history's defining moments.
• Football Ramble: The UK's original and most influential independent football podcast, spanning entertainment, analysis and coverage of the Premier League and beyond.
• Happy Mum Happy Baby: Giovanna Fletcher’s honest and empathetic conversations on parenthood.
• Happy Place: Fearne Cotton’s British Podcast Award-winning trailblazing conversations covering mental health and happiness.
• Help I Sexted My Boss: William Hanson and Jordan North's British Podcast Award-winning laugh-out-loud listener dilemmas and guidance on modern etiquette.
• High Performance: Jake Humphrey and Damian Hughes' thought-provoking lessons on achieving elite performance.
• Joe and James Fact Up: Inbetweeners Joe Thomas and James Buckley rummage through weird, wonderful and curious facts.
• Off Menu: Ed Gamble and James Acaster's iconic multi award-winning comedy podcast, where guests are invited to their dream restaurant.
• P1 with Matt & Tommy: Matt Gallagher and Tom Bellingham's fun fan-favourite breakdown of all the latest Formula 1 news and drama.
• Political Currency: Ed Balls and George Osborne's authoritative and revealing take on power, politics, and economics.
• Staying Relevant: Sam Thompson and Pete Wicks' TRIC Award-winning chaotic, entertaining mission of trying to remain relevant.
• That Peter Crouch Podcast: Peter Crouch, Chris Stark and Steve Sidwell’s British Podcast Award-winning witty discussions on football and dressing room secrets.
• The Ancients: Dedicated to discussing our distant past, host, Tristan Hughes, interviews historians and archaeologists to cover a specific theme from antiquity.
• The Girls Bathroom: Sophia and Cinzia's no-nonsense guidance on life, friendship, and relationships.
• The Receipts: Tolani Shoneye and Audrey Indome’s multi award-winning unfiltered takes on life, love, and pop culture.
• The Therapy Crouch: Abbey Clancy and Peter Crouch’s hilarious, candid deep-dive on their own relationship dynamics.

In addition, Acast has entered into an inventory partnership with Little Dot Studios, scaling the program across the studios’ 11 billion monthly views on YouTube with channels from the likes of Team GB, Barclays Women’s Super League, England & Wales Cricket Board, Gordon Ramsay, The Jonathan Ross Show and more. This gives Acast UK’s expanded omnichannel network the ability to offer YouTube video ads at scale, and provides advertisers with a single gateway to access Acast's core premium audio and an unparalleled, scaled-up video offering across both sponsorships and ads.

Josh Woodhouse, Managing Director UK & Ireland at Acast, said: "We’ve built the UK's most technologically-advanced and valuable marketplace for podcast advertising. Now, by unifying our premium audio inventory with immense video scale, Acast has created the definitive, single-point solution for brands and creators seeking measurable impact. We reach 8 out of 10 podcast fans weekly in the UK, and we are now the largest, fully integrated premium podcast offering in the market."

Building on Acast's expertise in extending and monetising podcasters' influence across all of their channels - from social to live events - the offering now delivers fully-integrated, measurable video at scale:

• Integrated Campaigns: Advertisers can now execute campaigns that seamlessly pair the high-trust, authentic endorsements of Acast UK's established baked-in video sponsorships with the vast, measurable reach of dynamically-sold YouTube video inventory. When it comes to ad engagement, podcast video ranks #1 across visual channels vs SVOD, BVOD and TV (Acast/Nielsen research 2025).
• Omnichannel Extension: Acast offers a seamless pathway to activate campaigns across audio, video, social, and live events, leveraging the full influence of the creator.
• Unprecedented Scale: The expanded inventory partnership instantly transforms Acast's video scale, granting access to the 2nd largest streaming catalogue in the UK, with more than 11 billion monthly views across the Little Dot Studios network of premium broadcasting, documentary, and sport channels.
• Influence-Driven Inventory: Built on the insight that 55% of all podcast listeners consider hosts to be the most important and trustworthy types of influencers (Acast Podcast Pulse Report, 2025), Acast is packaging this high-value inventory with unprecedented video scale.

The program, launching as a beta with top UK talent - where Acast has c. 60% market share of podcasting spend - is designed to unlock more revenue and accelerate audience growth on YouTube for creators, and directly addresses their common pain points. By joining, they gain:

• Enhanced Monetisation: Anywhere a podcast grows, Acast will grow its revenue. Creators will benefit from premium CPM ads on YouTube and increased video sponsorships. Acast is believed to be the first podcast monetisation company in the UK to enable premium, dynamic, targeted video ads on YouTube as a new revenue stream. This will unlock significant new earnings potential and higher yield from both premium video sponsorships and video ad sales. 
• Unified Management and Insights: Acast will integrate creators’ YouTube, audio RSS, and social analytics into a single intelligence layer. This cross-platform synthesis provides superior performance insights for creators that attract larger brand budgets, enabling truly integrated audio and video sponsorships.
• Video Growth Services: Creators will benefit from expert video growth advice, channel development, and a world-class management program offering to accelerate their cross-platform presence, facilitated by Little Dot’s deep expertise.

Fearne Cotton, host of Happy Place, commented: "This is exactly the support independent creators need to grow sustainably. Partnering with Acast has always allowed me to push boundaries, and this enhanced YouTube program means we can be leaders in video as well as audio, ensuring Happy Place can reach its full potential across all platforms."

Wayne Davison, Chief Revenue Officer at Little Dot Studios, said: “As the podcast medium evolves, video has helped redefine how creators can deepen fandoms, meeting audiences wherever they are. Our partnership with Acast lends our YouTube expertise to major talent as they evolve their own propositions on the world's biggest video platform. Through this program, we’re assisting in equipping Acast’s creators and their teams with best-in-class strategy to grow audiences and unlock greater commercial potential.”

The beta program launches in January, and is open to advertiser interest immediately. Following a successful beta, the program will be rolled out to all eligible UK creators later in 2026 and will also expand to other Acast markets.

Brands interested in advertising opportunities can get in touch at sales.uk@acast.com. For media enquiries: press@acast.com.