What’s Behind the Great Podcast Renaissance?
*By Kevin Roose**
**NY Magazine**
**
**Oct 30, 2014*
*This man is probably listening to "Radiolab." Photo: Roberto
Westbrook/Blend Images/Corbis*
In 2001, Steve Jobs announced the original iPod, a music player that
would make it possible for people to carry their entire album
collections in their pockets. Over the next few years, a genre of
narrative audio that took the device's name — "podcasting" — became a
thriving mini-industry. There were podcasts about politics, sports,
literature, comedy. There were podcasts that sounded like NPR, and ones
that sounded like Rush Limbaugh. Many lacked polish, but most had a kind
of energy to them that suited their audiences well.
And then, sometime around 2009 or 2010, the podcast scene seemed to
wither. The stalwarts ("This American Life," "Radiolab") stayed around
at the top of the iTunes charts, but there wasn't much else happening.
Download numbers fell. Interest waned. People moved on to online video
and streaming music services as a way to pass the time.
Today, a very different problem exists: There are /too/ many great
podcasts to keep up with. There's "Serial <http://serialpodcast.org/>,"
the true-crime drama hosted by "This American Life" producer Sarah
Koenig. There's "99% Invisible <http://99percentinvisible.org/>," a
design-themed podcast hosted by Roman Mars that has run several
mega-successful Kickstarter campaigns. There's "StartUp
<http://hearstartup.com/>," another product of the public-radio
diaspora, which tells the episodic story of NPR veteran Alex Blumberg's
attempt to create a podcasting business. Then there are the celebrities:
Ice T, Snooki from /Jersey Shore/, Stone Cold Steve Austin — podcasters
all. According to Edison Research
<http://www.edisonresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/The-Infinite-Dial-2014-from-Edison-Research-and-Triton-Digital.pdf>,
39 million people listened to a podcast in the last month, the highest
number on record.
What's happening? And why now? The word /podcast/ is roughly ten years
old, after all, and the "pod" to which it refers has been discontinued
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/11/ipod-classic_n_5804986.html>.
Still, the genre seems more alive than ever. I spoke to the people
behind several popular shows, and they agreed: We're in a golden age of
podcasting.
"What’s weird about this moment right now is that, broadly, you’ve got
this huge audience of radio listeners," Blumberg, the host of the
"StartUp" podcast, told me. "Now that audio has moved to on-demand," he
added, "people are really jumping in."
"We’re seeing more people getting in the game of podcasting," said Emily
Condon, the production manager of "Serial." "As people become more and
more used to consuming media in transit, while they’re cooking, in
various parts of their lives, it’s caught on."
"It's spreading like wildfire," added John Lee Dumas, the host of
"Entrepreneur on Fire," a popular business podcast now on its 738th episode.
"When you have Ira Glassgoing on /The Tonight Show/
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URN4YcTOivY> to talk about podcasting,
something is a little different," said Roman Mars.
There are a few possible reasons for the resurgence. The first is that
today's podcasts are simply better. Most podcasts used to be pretty
amateurish — two people talking about sports for an hour, say, or a
businessman ad libbing MBA lessons. And some still are. But today's top
podcasts — and I'll refer you to /The Atlantic/'s list
<http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/10/podcasts-so-good-you-want-to-binge-listen/382055/>
of some of the best — are full-scale productions with real staff,
budget, and industry expertise behind them.
Another reason that podcasts may be growing is that the economics
<http://www.fastcompany.com/3035954/most-creative-people/the-surprisingly-profitable-rise-of-podcast-networks>
are compelling. Producing an average podcast costs far less than
producing a TV show or a radio show (all you really need is a microphone
or two, a copy of Audacity or some other editing software, and a cheap
hosting service for the audio files themselves). And the advertising
rates on a successful podcast are big enough to pay for the costs many
times over. Several top podcasters told me that their CPM (the cost to
an advertiser per thousand impressions, a standard ad-industry unit) was
between $20 and $45. Compare that to a typical radio CPM (roughly $1 to
$18) or network TV ($5 to $20) or even a regular old web ad ($1 to $20),
and the podcast wins. Podcasts can charge higher ad rates because of the
personal nature of the single-host format — as an advertiser, it's far
better to have "Serial"'s Sarah Koenig reading your copy out loud than
to burst in with a prepackaged ad that nobody will pay attention to.
But as I talked to podcasters, they told me that the biggest reason for
the podcast renaissance has nothing to do with the podcasts themselves,
or the advertisers funding them.
It's actually about cars.
The secret to radio's success has always been the drive-time commuter.
An estimated 44 percent
<http://qz.com/195349/the-remarkable-resilience-of-old-fashioned-radio-in-the-us/>
of all radio listening takes place in the car, and that's the way the
radio industry likes it. Car-based listeners are captive, they tune in
for long stretches at a time, and they're valuable to advertisers. And
drivers' dedication to the AM/FM spectrum has made radio a remarkably
stable medium — even in 2013, according to the Pew Research Center and
Nielsen Audio, 91 percent of Americans over age 12 listened to the radio
on a weekly basis.
Now, though, cars are going online. Both Google and Apple have rolled
out connected-car platforms (Android Auto and Apple CarPlay,
respectively), and most new cars sold in the U.S. these days come with
the ability to play smartphone audio over the car's speakers, either
through Bluetooth connectivity or through a USB or auxiliary plug. One
industry group, GMSA, estimates
<http://www.gsma.com/connectedliving/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/cl_ma_forecast_06_13.pdf>
that 50 percent of all cars sold in 2015 will be internet-connected, and
100 percent by 2025.
Connected cars are a boon for the entire streaming audio industry, but
they're especially exciting for podcast makers, whose shows are
perfectly suited to in-car listening. Just as TV watchers can now choose
Netflix or Amazon streams over surfing channels, radio listeners will
soon have a bevy of on-demand options at their disposal.
Podcasts have also gotten help from software makers. Apple, whose iTunes
provided the launching pad for most early podcasts, gave podcasts their
own, non-deletable app on the latest version of its mobile operating
system. And several slick third-party apps — Stitcher, Overcast, and
Castro among them — have popped up with more robust functionality.
"With iTunes it was always a matter of plugging in your phone and
syncing it," Mars said. "There’s still probably a couple steps too many
for it to really be widespread, like TiVo. But I think it’s improved."
Combined with the macro trends of on-demand audio and connected cars,
these tools have made it possible for people like Roman Mars and Alex
Blumberg (whose podcasting start-up has raised more than $1 million to
date) to make a living doing podcasts. And the advertisers who aren't
paying attention to long-form audio storytelling might soon be convinced
to give the genre another look.
"Radio has been saved the disruption that has happened to other media.
It’s been frozen in time for 50 years," Blumberg said. "Now that
everyone is walking around with a radio in their pocket at all times,
and now that all cars are going to be connected, the form can flourish
again."
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