Podcasting 2024 - a look ahead

If you've been following me for any length of time, you'll be aware of my experience and time served in the podcasting space. I've seen every trend come and go, from the original era of video podcasting in the late 2000s, to the rise of social audio and true crime in more recent years.

Things move fast in podcasting these days, and I wanted to offer a look ahead to what I think 2024 has in store for us when it comes to this beautiful medium.

It's my hope you'll be able to get an idea of what's happening currently, and what opportunities may lie ahead for you or your brand.

Let's get into it!

Global Podcast Landscape in 2024

• The Podcast Index has over 5 million podcasts and an impressive 70 million episodes. This will surpass 10 million this year, and around 2 billion hours of audio. Those who have been focusing on YouTube and intraplatform content will finally take the plunge and create an RSS feed. After all, they might as well...
• Global podcast listeners are hitting the half-billion mark, with 504.9 million listeners anticipated by year-end. These will be captured within app, and will be ramp-able directly from those apps. Think about this before you abandon your own platforms like podcasts, emails and blogs, in order to focus on short-form. The gurus have this all wrong. So, so massively wrong. (Short form video clips will be useful for supporting what you're already doing but won't offer a magic bullet. We'll revisit this in a year and see if I was right! Spoiler alert - I am usually! I predicted the demise of both Clubhouse and Amazon's weird live radio tools in the month they were launched.)

UK Podcast Trends for 2024

• Comedy topped the charts in the UK in 2023, followed by News, Politics, Sports, and True Crime. This year we'll see new subcategories emerge from Apple Podcasts that will see business listening rise sharply.

• Social media (already embarrassingly low for conversion rates) deprecates further as a key driver for discovering new podcasts in the UK. Word-of-mouth recommendations and host-read ads climb in importance in the podcasters marketing playbook. But it's the smaller podcasts that will get the lion's share of this spend. And this would be my advice. Spend low, and spend wisely to see what works. My initial testing shows - the more listeners (10k+ per episode) the lower the conversion rates.
• 80% of UK listeners will be engaged in their favourite shows, listening to more than half of the episodes they download. 72% will avidly follow the content in their library. The battle will become about follows, not listens.

Who's Listening in 2024 and How?

• Gen Z is going to totally dominate the podcast scene, consuming content at more than double the rate of other age groups globally.
• Smartphones will tighten their stranglehold for podcast listening, with 90% of listeners using their mobile devices to consume content. Apple Podcasts will finally release an Android app.

The Business Side of Things

• The global podcast industry is set to be worth a whopping $30.03 billion in 2024. Most of this will be swimming around the ad tech space. Measurement will take leaps forward this year, with emphasis on proper pixel placement.
• Podcast ads will grow in use with 75% of global listeners being introduced to new products through podcast advertisements. The pre-roll will die and the mid-roll will be the go-to format, and all hosting companies will now add this as a feature even on domestic accounts. Sorry, Podbean and Acast!
• Enterprise level podcasting will fade as more brands and individuals see hosting as a commodity. Companies that offer only hosting will be forced to adapt or die. Companies like mine will be seen more for our value as a marketing strategy component rather than hosting and publishing solution. Podknows Podcasting already has plans for facilitating this offer change!

Emerging Trends

• Video podcasts, or 'vodcasts', will conservatively rise, offering a blend of audio and visual content in apps. YouTube Music will set the precedent for this new approach by mainstreaming RSS ingestion. Hosting companies will look to add mp4 passthrough to facilitate this. Libsyn will capitalise as part of their Podcasting 2.0 roll out, and this will explain why they delayed updating for so long. Ultimately, they'll identify their unique offering and pivot as an RSS video podcasting platform

• AI-driven podcasting is set to be worth $3 billion in 2024, with 40% of podcasters using AI tools to enhance their content. There will be resistance to this at both the listener and creator ends, but ultimately, there'll be a calm middle-ground found which leads to efficient content production but not at the detriment of quality. ChatGPT will lose ground in podcasting thanks to innovation and creation of bespoke tools.

My final thoughts

2024 is going to be an exciting year for podcasting, both globally and in the UK.

The rise in younger listeners, the increasing popularity of different formats like vodcasts, and the growing impact of AI are just a few of the trends to watch.

And keep an eye on that ad-tech.

Subscribe to newsletters like Podnews and Sounds Profitable to get the latest updates on that area of the space.

Whether you're a podcaster, marketer, or an avid listener, there's never been a better time to take an interest in the world of podcasts as an addition to your personal branding arsenal.