Podcasting in the world of YouTube

Podcasting is giving creators a run for their money. In the post covid era, good original content has become more and more scarce. Podcasts are one which are still evolving and least impacted, especially when compared with the content on a medium like YouTube and Instagram. As per a recent KPMG report, the amount of time users spent on digital (laptop, phone, tablet combined) has doubled to what they did pre covid. There has been a steep rise in the quantity of both podcasts recorded and podcast consumed. Apple at WWDC in 2018 confirmed that there were 550,000 podcasts. Another article by Fast Company in 2018 shared that there were over 525,000 podcasts with 18.5 million episodes. Currently, in March 2021, Apple hosts over 1.96 million podcasts. More than a 256% jump from 2018. 

Reason Behind the increase

What led to this increase? Is it only covid? If we look back not only covid but the introduction of IoT devices like Google Home, Amazon Echo, Apple Hub lead contributed to a change in consumption patterns. Google home debuted in November 2016 and as it became mainstream more and more people were subscribing to content which they were consumed by the command of their voice. This also led to the development of a new matrix called LX, listening experience. This was driven from the world of UX where the websites are designed by keeping what the user wants and now it was time for podcasts.

Covid acted as the main factor for driving digital transformation for many industries and audio streaming was one of them. Podcasts started as monologues but then they moved to multi-host, interviews, round table, and more. As the demand increased, we saw better quality content dissemination taking place. The generation which was the main driver of Facebook when it got launched, moved out to Instagram and podcasts. Podcasts gave both creators and marketers a parallel arena to reach out to people.

In 2020, Deloitte published a report on global technology adoption. As this was pre covid the numbers were based on the erstwhile trend and growth pattern. Deloitte predicted that global audiobook marketing with grow by 25% and Podcasting by 30% with revenue of the latter crossing the mark of US 1 Billion. But then covid struck and we saw a growth of over 200%. What was earlier only available of native media buying and influencer marketing, podcast advertising became part of programmatic media buying for brands. Emarketer predicted programmatic ad spending on podcasts to experience an 18% gain, maximum between the assets available.

India Market

With the change in the average age of the population and most of which lies between 18-30 years, the content consumption pattern of Indians has been evolving at a similar pace if not the same as that of US citizens. The podcast industry has evolved largely in the last couple of years, Spotify reported that 86% of Indian parents who listen to podcasts feel that the medium has become a very helpful educational tool. Similar to global trends, covid played an important aspect in industry growth in India. As reported by Inc42, As of December 2019, 40 Mn Indian internet users have listened to podcasts in India. Although, this market is just one small fraction of the bigger OTT video and music streaming industry.

Earlier what was limited to SoundCloud was now adopted on apps like Gaana, Jio Saavan, Spotify, anchor, etc. The acceptance of paid streaming services acted as a catalyst to the movement. The industry was able to grow multi-fold. This was also reflected by multiple acquisitions both globally and locally, Amazon acquired Wondery globally and this was considered a big leap in the podcast industry as Wondery was one of the first movers and Amazon was moving aggressively with integration for Alexa and Amazon Music. Locally, the IVM podcast one of the industry leaders was acquired by Pratilipi.

India saw a push of podcasts in regional languages. Both National and regional FM channels now have a new competitor in the listening space. Brands like Apple, Spotify, Jio, and IVM are pushing the gas to get maximum market share in the newly unlocked industry. Jio Saavan even launched a service called Your cast to promote podcast creation in India.

Media Spends on Digital Audio Advertising

Media spends on global advertising has been on the rise both globally and locally. Brands like Jio Saavan, Spotify have come with omnichannel marketing platforms. In parallel we also see brands like Apple and Spotify launching their subscription model. Both the models, advertising, and subscribing are sharing the space.

While this development has to lead to the opening of new industries, which run parallel to video and text but this has also given a headache to brand managers. The challenge to park money for a niche product or to go mass. While there are new indexes like LX, a listening experience that is similar to UX, user experience in the world of digital, have come to existence but how leakproof are these. This is still a big mystery. The speed of evolution is also causing jitters to creators. What was more casual earlier is not a serious business, packed with insights and a carrier choice for many. Creators are facing challenges to create unique and fresh content to keep users plugged in. We have seen brands also taking the centre stage and placing themselves as content creators in the medium instead of just advertisers. Microsoft and Google, both are running podcasts on technology and especially the cloud.

FOMO

While the podcast industry has been growing at its pace, we saw a new app in the circuit. The one that operated on FOMO for both listeners and creators. Clubhouse changed the way podcasts were perceived till now and encapsulated on FOMO. Influencers, creators have already started to move the new platforms it is interesting to see how brands a utilizing this.

Tech giants like Facebook and Twitter are testing new platforms to counter the rise of the clubhouse. These new platforms will definably have an impact on the growth of the current platforms which were only supporting podcasts. It will be interesting to see in the near future, how will the publishers react.

With such a transition, and limited revenue reports it would be interesting to see where the shift happens. Seeing the current trends, we expect to have a higher gain in the latter part of 2021 given the stickiness. The more important question for marketers will be which bank will they break to park money for this new medium?