2019 Podcast Ecosystem
In the world of podcasting new technologies – including: AirPods, connected cars, and smart speakers – they have made it easier than ever for consumers to listen to audio content.
This in turn encourages others to get on board the podcast revolution. Something we at Mt. Bonnell have done with gusto. There are now another 700,000 free podcasts available to listen to any time with many more coming on stream every month.
So with so much choice, and so many creative audio alternatives where do you turn as this next wave of listening products enters an already crowded field?
Mt. Bonnell works with clients in creating podcasts in the same way we work with ourselves, namely, in creating unique sounds, such as can be heard on Move Your Business to the United states , for example.
In short, we are never prescriptive. Each business is as unique as the people who started and are running it. We get that; we welcome it; we use it.
Over the past 10 years, podcasts have grown from a niche community of sound file distributors to a global business, with up to one-third of all Americans now listening monthly, and a quarter listening weekly. And, this market is only set to get bigger.
In 2013 only 7% of Americans were listening weekly to podcasts. By 2019 that figure is standing at 22%. Further research suggests that 65% of monthly podcast listeners have been listening for less than 3 years. So podcasts are not only building an audience with users listening more – some reckon as much as 6 hours per week – but they are also attracting and keeping new listeners. This figures rises again when considering the weekly podcast listeners. They are consuming on average: 7 podcast episodes per week, that’s nearly 1 hour per day.
Okay, you say, so what has this to do with my business model? Well, even if you are not thinking of making podcasts you need to look at who is consuming them. The reason is simple: the demographic of podcast listeners is not your average American. Roughly half of all US podcast listeners make $75,000 or more in annual income. They are educated too, at least 33% are university educated, with a majority having a more than one degree.
They are still mostly male listeners. But this is narrowing considerably – from a 25% gender gap in 2008 to about 9% today.
So they are educated millennials, slightly more men than women. They are, in effect, the Holy Grail of advertising: affluent, male, and highly educated.
Following the release of the Apple podcast app in 2012 consumption of the average podcast moved noticeably to smart phones. And this is all more the more surprising when researchers have concluded that about 50% of podcast listening takes place in the home, about 26% in the car. This may start to shift again, however, if only because of the rise of Bluetooth-enabled cars and smart speakers, with the latter now owned by 53 million Americans or 21% of the population. Whereas this may change the way podcasts are being consumed, it is only ever going to drive listenership upwards.
But even so why have podcasts become the “hottest” media and the most intriguing for advertisers?
Perhaps you can notice another trend in these figures. Unlike older technologies, podcasts are not just keeping apace of technological change they are being ever more distributed because of them, for example, Bluetooth.
As with all tech trends, podcasts and the means to distribute them have had a slow and gentle incline over the last 15 years. It wasn’t until 2005 that the word podcast was added to the Oxford English Dictionary. But that year is significant for another reason. In 2005, podcasts were added to the iTunes store. Steve Jobs commented: “Podcasting is the next generation of radio, and users can now subscribe to over 3,000 free Podcasts and have each new episode automatically delivered over the Internet to their computer and iPod.”
Like most things he said on the tech front, Jobs saw where things were heading. And, he has been proved right.
In 2007, the first iPhone was introduced. However, it wasn’t until 2012 that Apple created the Podcasts app. The release of this app is the moment when podcasting and podcasts began to seriously move center stage. Podcasts were now only a tap away from millions of potential users.
It would be fait to say that Apple Podcasts have played a pivotal role in the development of the industry. Even today it remains the dominant app for podcast listening. The major feature of Apple Podcasts is that it’s pre-installed on all iPhones, making it a tap away for 900 million people worldwide. Some estimate that Apple Podcasts has approximately 27 million monthly active users in the U.S., based on App Annie. If you look at the two figures – 900 and 27 million – you’ll agree there is still a lot of room for growth.
We know all about this at Mt. Bonnell having had the honor of leading Apple charts across the globe. There is nothing that comes even close to the market share of that platform. However, that said its market share has fallen in the last few years, from over 80% to today around 63%. The recent launch of Google Podcasts is going to change this playing field even more. Spotify has made a big push into podcasts in just a few years. That platform now accounts for almost 10% of all listening.
A number of media and technology companies making a big push into podcasts, including Spotify, Pandora, and iHeartRadio, all have large existing audiences. The challenge for these companies is to leverage their existing audiences to cross-promote podcasts by using listener data to personalize listening experiences and so help find relevant podcasts. Google launched a standalone Podcasts app last year. In so doing, Google recognized that it was a growth opportunity when placed alongside the potential of worldwide Google users.
Interestingly, though, researchers have found that podcast listeners don’t care whose podcast app they’re using. It’s the audio content itself that matters. Technology is one thing, content is a whole different ball game.
Podcasts were waiting for some trail blazing podcast that would break out of the podcast ghetto – however large it had become – and not only go mainstream but revolutionize the whole audio content market. That podcast aired in 2014. It was called Serial. It’s mix of true crime and documentary journalism achieved 5 million downloads in the first month.
The whole world suddenly woke up to this phenomenon known as podcasts.
Just over 5 years later, we are witnessing an explosion in great audio content and in ways to listen to it. This was as increasingly new devices made it easier and easier to listen to podcasts. Alexa launched in 2015, the next year both Google Home and AirPods were born. The new content was catering to every imaginable demographic and taste. There was and is a podcast for seemingly everything — ranging from daily news to narrative to talks shows, sports, fashions, lifestyle, religion, politics and on and on.
Now, here’s the thing, and it should come as no surprise. Advertising spend in and around podcasts has been growing steadily each year to around $220M in 2017.
Given everything you’ve just read – can you afford not to listen to what people are saying about podcasts?
Give Mt. Bonnell a call, we can, as with most things, help with your business podcast strategy.
