The Growth of the Podcast 📈
Podcasts have exploded into popular use over the last 12–24 months and have become the popular mode for information gathering, entertainment, white noise and advertising amongst young people. As shown by the Podcast Intelligence Report, podcasts are Australia’s fastest growing on-demand audio medium with 3.5 million listeners between the ages of 16 and 64. The growth of podcasts is continuing to excel with 20% of podcasters new in the last 6 months. Podcast Awareness in Australia is particularly high with 89% of Australians 18–75 claiming to be aware of podcasts.
So why is podcasting becoming so potent?🎙🤔The rapid increase of podcasts seems to be at odds with recent findings that attention spans have decreased and willingness to invest time for value, particularly among young people, has rapidly declined with the rise of gifs, Youtube and flash news. Nevertheless, there is incredible attentiveness when it comes to the average 45 minute podcast with 85% of listeners listening to the end.
Research into the interest and loyalty to podcasts has been remarkably low but there have been a few factors attributing to the podcast’s explosive popularity:
1. Podcast listeners are able to curate and select specific topics they are interested in
In a research of podcast listeners aged 18–35 years old the most commonly given reason for listening to podcasts was the ability to pick and choose content. You listen to what you want, when you want. Unlike radio which is susceptible to time fillers and the listener has no control over structure, podcasts allow for selective searching and scanning through podcast content.
2. Keep up with the news or information in a focused manner
The ability to selectively inform is another common reason given for podcast loyalty. The inventiveness of podcast channels such as ‘Serial’ or ‘Ted Talks Daily’ alongside informative newscasts such as ‘Stuff You Should Know’ attracts listeners away from traditional media outlets by offering listeners everything from global news to what a lobotomy is to how galaxies work.
3. Can back to back listen to podcasts or channels that listeners resonate with
Another discerning feature of podcasts from radio channels is the ability of podcast listeners to jump between or within podcasts for continuous content. Like skipping between songs the ability to have episodes of podcasts gives a great deal of control to the listener.
4. More potential for entertainment
Most podcast listeners listed greater diversity and greater engagement as their reason for listening to podcasts over music. However, the episode structure and directly accessible format of podcasts also avoids the breaks and discontinuities of radio channels.
5. Effective use of time
Effective use of time was a major reason for the podcast transition. Being able to listen through a smart phone when in transit and multi-tasking was a major feature attracting young listeners who find themselves time poor and looking for time optimization.
So when it comes to the explosion of the podcast it seems like the perfect platform for a highly persuadable and innovative young demographic. Not only is the podcast perfect for on-demand, content binge consumption, which users have become accustomed to from other flash media but it is also perfect for customizable and personal curation. In combination with an average ad timing of only 4 minutes in comparison to the average 16 minutes on TV, the podcast is far less tedious while optimizing time than other traditional forms of entertainment.
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