A Mass-Reach Medium With Meaning

Conal Byrne, CEO iHeartMedia Digital Audio Group.

Any emerging medium starts out with a superfandom of early adopters who jump in first because they feel part of an early-day tribalism around that content type and the creators driving it. As mediums grow, if they survive across the first 5, 10 or 15 years of their life cycle, those superfans become, more simply, just fans. And, if that medium is truly fortunate, those fans then become a mass-reach audience.

Podcasting is now a mass-reach medium, and as such, it is proving to be unique. As the medium continues to grow—now reaching 120 million Americans a month and, perhaps even more compellingly, 89 million Americans a week—the more notable statistic is that individual engagement around the medium has doubled over the last five years from about a half an hour a day to almost an hour a day for weekly listeners. The fastest growing kind of podcast listener is a daily listener, with that cohort alone up 20% year over year. As the overall audience grows, individual engagement is growing, too; that’s rare. As the medium has become mass reach, its listeners are engaging more—not less.

These engagement stats extend into marketing effectiveness as well because marketers are actually seeing podcast mass-reach audiences behave like early adopter superfan audiences. For example, 75% of listeners trust podcast hosts more than social media; 65% of podcast listeners pay attention to podcast ads (compared to 39% on TV). As a result, 60% of podcast listeners have bought something because they heard about it in a podcast.

A Shifting Trend For Mediums

With this much engagement and trust, how is podcast listening affecting other mediums and content types? Because a listener trusts podcasters more than other mediums, does it mean that the listener is consuming those other content types less, or at least differently? When it comes to where this upward trend in podcast listening is pulling from, what are people doing less of?

Most would think that podcasts probably pulled primarily from other audio types. The statistics and facts bear out a very different truth: 70% are spending less time on social media platforms such as Facebook, TikTok and Instagram; 50% of podcast listeners are watching fewer YouTube videos to listen to podcasts; 46% of podcast listeners are spending less time streaming music, followed by activities such as streaming video and watching movies and so on. With these figures in mind, it shouldn’t surprise us that video-centric platforms are building podcast strategies, presumably to retain this audience and engagement. (We already see YouTube moving in this direction.)

Three Considerations For Starting A Great Podcast

With the growing trend of podcasting, it’s not surprising that companies across each and every industry are getting involved in the platform. When considering a podcast for your business, here are a few of the most important things to consider.

Cover a topic you’d be talking about “even if the microphone was broken.”

There’s no need to dig too deep for a podcast idea. The best shows are often born out of a passion shared by the host and their audience, establishing the type of authentic connection that makes podcasting unique. Any subject you can talk about endlessly is a great place to start, as listeners appreciate the credibility that comes from a host who understands the intricacies of a topic.

Keep it up weekly and year-round.

Conversation is an art form that can be learned. Going back and listening to the first episode of a hit podcast can feel shocking. The hosts sound different, a bit awkward even and nothing feels polished. When diving into podcasting, it’s important to remember that no one starts out as an expert. Hosts hone their craft the more episodes they record, the more guests they talk to and the more thought they put into their topics.

Listen to others.

Learn from others, but don’t imitate. Authenticity rules. Each host brings their perspective and personality to their show, and by crowdsourcing ideas and techniques from other shows, hosts can refine their own style and create an authentic identity. But avoiding direct imitation helps maintain originality, foster creativity and establish a distinct connection with the audience. This will help a host stand out in a crowded podcasting landscape and offer something truly unique and valuable to their listeners.

Conclusion

As a medium that is not platform-specific but rather publisher-centric, podcasting is a content type where creators have the first and last word, where they’re able to tell the story and have the conversation exactly as it should be—exactly as they see fit. In this light, it’s fascinating that podcasting is pulling from mediums where the content is often reverse-engineered from algorithms and discovery engines. (Specifically interesting here is the notion that podcasting is not yet a platform-optimized content type like SEO content on the internet more broadly is.) Is this a migration back toward longer-form, more creator-centric content?

At its best, a podcast is the human voice simply telling a great, authentic story—or having a thoughtful, engaging conversation—unchanged by platform specs or algorithmic demands, as it was meant to be. Is the rising demand for such a thing indicative of a larger shift in audience appetites? I believe that, yes, it is, and that such a shift might perhaps be good.

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