Comprehensive coverage of the podcasting industry and its business ecosystem.
Most podcast rankers illuminate the concentration and stability of success — in other words, they don’t change much. Triton Digital’s every-four-weeks list of ranked 100 shows provides more oxygen, enabling rising shows to breathe in the exposure. In the latest, eight new shows appear, five of them from Kast Media. Continue Reading
Magellan has released its always interesting Top 15 monthly report, this one for February. As always, it includes two rankers: Top 15 spenders, and Top 15 movers & shakers. Click for details and the Top Spenders list. Continue Reading
“Digital audio has undoubtedly benefited from the UK lockdowns,” according to eMarketer, which has revised its projection for digital audio listening in the UK. The research company now says that digital listening will grow beyond its pre-pandemic forecast, which predicts percentage-of-population metrics through 2024. Two types of listening are documented in this forecast. Click for details and graphics. Continue Reading
New podcasts of note.
CNN 5 Things (CNN)
Unexplainable (Vox)
The Genius Generation (TRAX from PRX)
by Steve Goldstein
In this guest column, Steve Goldstein gets real about podcast creators getting their shows into the mobile devices of prospective listeners, and then actually getting played as a separate challenge. “Our smartphones are loaded with the great intentions of downloaded podcasts that are never listened to.” Brace for numbers-based reality.
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Omny Studio released a raft of interesting data illustrating a truism of media: Success is concentrated at the top. How many downloads does it take to be in the 1%? Or the top 50%? Click through for graphs. Continue Reading
In a peculiar perception vs. reality quirk, more Americans recognize the Pandora name than any other online audio brand, but Spotify is the online audio brand used more often. Click through for graphic illustrations. Also — how does smart-speaker ownership affect which audio service Americans listen to? Continue Reading
While listening trends are changeable on the whole, American in-car listening routines are decidedly un-modern. AM/FM radio, owned music files, and CDs are the most-used sources. Online streaming and podcasts are making gains, hampered by an 80% lack of in-dash entertainment systems in the American car fleet.
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The “early innings” meme expressed by many leaders of podcast publishing and advertising appears proved out in the 2021 edition of The Infinite Dial 2021. Weekly podcast listening is up year-over-year … but with a long way to grow. Continue Reading
After 19 years of eager growth, listening to online audio among Americans has settled for three years at about two-thirds of the 12+ population. To be precise, 68% in the just-released Infinite Dial 2021. The number skews to younger ages. Continue Reading
In today’s The Infinite Dial 2021, smart speakers received a share of attention. A third of Americans own at least one smart speaker. Perhaps unsurprisingly, survey respondents who work at home registered a greater percentage of ownership. Also, multiple-speaker ownership is steadily growing. Continue Reading
by Steve Goldstein
In this guest column, Steve Goldstein ruminates on the possible podcast-industry-wide switch from “Subscribe” to “Follow.” He cheers Apple for announcing the switch, but wonders: “Have we seen the last of the term “subscribe” as it relates to podcasts?”
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