Formats look interchangeable on a rate card and behave nothing alike in practice. Here is where the spot sits in each session, and what the person on the other end is doing when it runs.
The biggest screen in the house, and the one nobody skips. Ads run in pods before and during the programme, full screen and non-skippable, with sound on and often more than one person watching. Pause ads are a separate surface: a static unit that appears when the viewer stops playback.
The listener is already committed — they chose the show, pressed play, and are usually wearing headphones. Ads are stitched into the episode at slots the publisher defines, so a spot bought today runs in a show downloaded today. Sound is on by definition; nobody listens to a podcast on mute.
A continuous stream the listener leaves running — in the car, at a desk, on a smart speaker. Ads land in breaks between songs or segments, exactly where a terrestrial spot would, but addressable. The listener rarely has a screen in hand, so the audio carries the whole message.
The ad plays during natural pauses in gameplay — a loading screen, the gap between rounds, a menu. The player keeps their hands on the controls and their eyes on the screen, so audio reaches them without interrupting play. Delivered in-app on mobile and console, with sound-on rates far above mobile video.
A reader lands on an article and presses play instead of reading. A synthetic voice narrates the piece, and the ad runs before the narration begins or at a paragraph break. The context is editorial, not entertainment — the listener is on a news or reference site and the surrounding content is contextually targetable.
Diagrams only get you so far. If you want to hear how a spot lands in each format before you buy, ask and we’ll send examples.