Goalhanger will sell its podcast ads in-house from 2027. Sales hit £37.9m last year

Goalhanger, the British podcast company behind The Rest Is History and The Rest Is Politics, will sell all of its advertising itself from January 2027. It announced the move on 1 October 2026. Until now part of its sales ran through outside representation, which the company did not name.

Goalhanger made £37.9m in 2025

The company gave its own figures with the news. Sales reached £37.9 million in 2025, with average revenue growth of 321% a year over three years. Goalhanger counted more than 750 million full-episode views and streams in 2025 and expects to pass one billion in 2026.

The network now runs shows such as Empire, The Rest Is Entertainment, The Rest Is Money and The Rest Is Football. The football show ran as a daily Netflix series during the 2026 World Cup, Advanced Television reports. Audio stars moving to TV screens is not new: Howard Stern took his show to HBO Max. In September its first live festival sold 26,000 tickets across 22 shows at the Southbank Centre in London.

Josh Akers and Charlotte Robbins run the sales team

Josh Akers, director of commercial operations, and Charlotte Robbins, head of partnerships, lead the in-house unit. Robbins told Press Gazette that brands come for the way Goalhanger works with its hosts, not only for its listeners. The press release says hosts want to work only with brands they like.

Goalhanger lists Fuse Energy, People’s Postcode Lottery, Guinness, NBCUniversal, Cancer Research UK, Octopus Energy and Vanguard among its partners. It also hired Tom Miceli, formerly of the WME agency, as head of IP development for TV and film projects.

Podcast networks keep more of each ad pound in-house

Selling ads directly lets a network keep the share it used to pay a sales house. It also puts the hosts closer to the brief. That fits a wider shift, as platforms such as Spotify pay creators more directly through its Partner Program in over 35 new markets.

The open question is who loses the contract. Goalhanger has not named its current sales partner. That partner will need to replace a network that expects one billion plays in 2026 before the switch on 1 January 2027.