THE RISE OF PODCASTS

Okay, let’s be honest. You probably aren’t going to read this article in its entirety. But what if someone was reading this out loud to you while you were driving to work, working out at the gym or completing chores around the house?

Yes, your guess is right! We are talking about podcasts that are more popular now than ever. With the covid-19 pandemic, the rise in digital media such as podcasts had only continued to rise. But don’t mistake their exponential growth acceleration for a flash in the pan.

How many podcasts are there? Right now, there are more than 1 million active podcasts and more than 30 million podcast episodes, including content in more than 100 languages. India is the world’s third-largest podcast market, according to PwC.

Further, it has been stated by Google that India is one of the top five countries consuming podcast content. There is a definite demand for local, Indianized content that has led to podcasts becoming the new battleground in the audio streaming sector. Interesting, isn’t it?

Have you ever wondered in such a digital visual age what made the audio content so engaging that it created a new trend for itself?

In this article, we’ll look into some past brief history of podcasting and analyse the new trends and booms in the industry and specifically current trends in India.

BRIEF HISTORY OF PODCASTS:

A podcast is an online audio broadcast that predates the internet. They go back to the 1980s and were initially called “audio blogging”. However, the lack of means to distribute the recordings took another couple of decades before the stream took off.

Another milestone in the history of podcasting was in 2005 when Apple added a podcast directory with over 3000 free programs to the iTunes store. Some of the popular podcast platforms include Spotify, Podcast Addict, Google podcasts, and several others.

This was quite prominent in 2020 when the lockdown imposed due to the COVID pandemic forced most of the country’s population to stay inside their homes.

Despite an initial decline in the rate, there was a 42% increase in the time people spent on audio streaming platforms post the entry of the pandemic in the world.

The pictorial data are recent survey results of 2020 during which the audio-visual platforms experienced a huge boom.

CURRENT TREND:

Podcast might be a new term in India, “But it is not too different from listening to stories from our grandparents”, says Managing director India Spotify, “Storytelling is something that is rooted in our culture”.

In a recent survey in 2020, it was identified that these podcasts are so deep as if someone is sitting beside to share knowledge and people feel close to the host/the speaker as there are no distractions unlike video platforms and that bagged a huge market, especially during this pandemic.

“I think we are a country that is starved for time. And, a video requires way more engagement unlike audio, which allows multi-tasking,” says Indian Vox Media.

The leverage to listen whenever and wherever that too personalized subscriptions gave an extra edge for its development.

Also, that directly or indirectly means that lots of marketing and advertising are done through such podcasts and we have quantitative evidence both from the institutions that advertise their brand as well as from the consumer end.

The plethora of genres ranging from Arts & Entertainment, Education, Lifestyle, Mythology, Psychology, Daily News and many more genres attract audiences from all ages that adds value to every listener as there are podcasts of varied time length and contents that can be consumed in a very short span and are personalized.

So after reading all this, if you still haven’t tried listening to a podcast yet, then grab your headphones and try listening to one now, because you are missing out on some great content!