The Rise of the Podcast

Even with the best intentions, it’s very possible that you might not read to the end of this article. The new year has just begun, but no doubt your inbox is already full to the brim. Perhaps you have healthy meals to prep, children’s lunchboxes to make or an afternoon spin class booked in to affirm that good old ‘new year, new me’ mentality… So, what should I do to keep you interested? I’ll wager that the probability of you making it to the end of this piece would be significantly higher if this article were read aloud via the dulcet tones of a Stephen Fry or a David Attenborough, allowing you to carry on with your tasks uninterrupted. Am I right?

Podcasts have been around for over two decades, and their popularity has been increasing steadily across the globe ever since. Even the arrival of the Covid pandemic in 2020 couldn’t stop their rise, despite much of the world being brought to a complete standstill. I was intrigued as to why this medium has continued to register such significant growth, so I decided to delve a little deeper to understand why.

With all the unpredictability throughout the pandemic and the limited interactions with our family, friends and colleagues, podcasts allowed us to hear and easily access content relevant to our work, interests, and home life, via a familiar voice. With many of us having subscribed to our favourites prior to the pandemic, podcasts offered something familiar, and continuous, allowing us to engage in discussions and debates from the confines of our homes at a time of great uncertainty.

As lockdown dragged on, many of us decided to keep busy by trying out new hobbies, be it a daily run, baking copious amount of banana bread or attempting to put up that shelf laying dormant in the shed. Whatever activity you chose, the likelihood is that it required movement, and in that regard, the flexibility and freedom podcasts provide cannot be underestimated. They allow us to move around uninterrupted whilst listening to our favourite content – what’s not to love? The content itself is also far easier to access than some other media. We don’t have to spend time scrolling a web page or social media or flicking through a book to pick up where we left off; the new episode of our subscribed podcast is downloaded and readily available for us to hit play and get back to the DIY or bread making.

Unsurprisingly, the trust and sustained relationship that podcasts have built with their audiences over the last few years is something that advertisers are keen to capitalise on, and luckily, listeners are on board. 81% of podcast listeners state that they are accepting of native advertiser slots in podcasts[1] and 40% of listeners stating that they would pay for a podcast[2]. With such a wide array of topics now available from business, finance and tech to lifestyle and science, advertisers can now reach niche audience groups in a highly relevant contextual environment. In addition, podcast listeners are hugely loyal, and advertisers can piggyback on this high level of trust with exclusive sponsorships, allowing brands an opportunity to amass a sustained and unique rapport amongst a highly engaged audience.

With the International Advertising Bureau (IAB) predicting that podcast revenue in the US alone is expected to hit $2 billion by 2023[3], I think we can expect to see podcasts continue to grow in popularity, not only among listeners, but as a key element on advertiser marketing plans!

[1] Source: iqd podcast survey 2020, case numbers: n= 2,596, survey period: 25/05 – 29/06/2020

[2] Source: iqd podcast survey 2020, case numbers: n= 2,596, survey period: 25/05 – 29/06/2020

[3] Source: IAB US Podcast Advertising Revenue Study: Full Year 2020 Results and 2021-2023 Growth Projections, May 2021.