The Hollywood Reporter has exposed how some of the biggest names in podcasting are inflating audience numbers and misrepresenting their deals. Bill Simmons, head of podcast innovation and monetization at Spotify, didn’t hold back: “I can’t believe how many people are dishonest about this stuff.”

Dan Meisner, co-founder of podcast marketing company Bumper, says he’s seen this often. especially with podcasters eager to climb Apple’s charts. The deeper problem? “The yardstick is broken.” In an industry where success is measured almost entirely by downloads, followers, and subscriber counts, creators have every incentive to inflate numbers because brand deals hinge on those metrics.

This isn’t a one-off scandal! it’s a symptom of a broken system. Podcasts have evolved into multimedia properties, with live events, cross-platform content, and new audience engagement tools. Yet the advertising world still acts like raw download counts are the only score that matters. That outdated thinking fuels manipulation.

It’s exactly why I’m building a new media layer designed for the future. One that gives creators true content ownership and breaks the “unpaid content labor” cycle Big Tech has profited from for decades.

In our model, podcasters won’t have to fake their stats to get brand deals. VOKL DAO is designed to let them license their work, secure real partnerships, and share in the revenue generated by their content. This system uses transparent, verifiable metrics and tokenized rewards so creators and their audiences both benefit. The platform’s users become stakeholders in its growth not just data points to be sold.

The current podcast scandal is more than bad press really it’s a wake up call for every media vertical. If your economy is built on broken metrics, your industry will break. The solution isn’t more secrecy. It’s radical transparency, creator-first infrastructure, and technology that aligns incentives with truth.

That’s the future we’re building.