The podcast business started over 20 years ago, however, it began being more popular only 5 years ago. Its success has however been contributed by many factors, ranging from huge budget investment by major companies like Spotify and Apple to the business being more popular during this technological era. Currently, the business market in the United States is esteemed to be having over a hundred million listeners monthly. This number has doubled over the years because in 2015 the number of listeners was stated to be 45 million every month.
In this article, we are going to give you in-depth information on how the podcast business is booming and how it is expected to be a billion-dollar industry by 2021. We are going to equip you with knowledge of how major key players in the industry are scaling to get to new heights in terms of podcast business. By increasing the number of listeners and making use of the dynamic digital media to make them have a larger audience, brands are putting together efforts to make the podcast industry a success.
How has the covid-19 pandemic affected the podcast business?
Ever since the pandemic set its foot on the face of the earth, many entrepreneurs have had to shift to a digital way of doing business. This has undoubtedly affected the podcast industry. The amount of listeners has been seen to have a sharp increase in 2020 given the fact that most people spent more time on the internet during the pandemic season. However, the main challenge to the podcast has been the way many listeners have systems on their devices such as ad blockers that can block access of advertisers.
There had been a spike in the number of listeners that has largely been contributed by the increase in the popularity of the business due to massive advertisement and entry of new investors into the industry. Surveys show that the US is esteemed to spent over $ 1 billion in 2021 for podcast advertisements, these figures will show a huge increase from $480 million spent in 2018.
The industry is currently in a great phase of innovation and the introduction of the new technology of making podcasts successful. The new ways of discovering, creating, and advertising fresh content are also evolving very fast.
Genre and format insight
The news and political sector have attributed to the highest amount of revenue due to the attention that many users pay for getting news and political updates. Podcasts are categorized into many genres namely; news political, comedy, sports, social, and culture among others. Research shows that many listeners prefer short bulletins that range from 1-5 minutes and news summaries that are from 5-10 minutes. It is due to this matter that many media and news houses are now embracing audio streaming to increase the audience of their content. Since the serge of the coronavirus pandemic, the news segment has been seen to be dominant since most listeners want to get updates concerning the pandemic. The sports segment has also been projected to expand over the next few months due to the return of sporting activities which had been stopped to curb the spread of covid-19.
The format of the podcast has also been reviewed to ensure that there are many more listeners and can get the maximum amount of attention from them. The podcast format is classified into various themes such as interview, solo, conversational, solo, panel, and repurposed content.
In terms of regional insight, Northern America is known to hold the highest amount of revenue is it holds almost 40 percent of the whole podcast market with the U.S by itself being the sole holder of 35 percent of the whole podcast market revenue.
 The podcasting industry is one of the fastest-growing industries during this technological evolution era. As many people continue adopting the podcast market and new players continue getting into the market, the revenue is also expected to skyrocket. By the year 2027, research shows that the total podcast revenue will be worth more than $60 billion. This means that the podcasting industry is expanding and being accepted by more people over the world, although the United States is currently the largest consumer in the market.
The most interesting thing about the great multibillion podcasting industry is how people are entering the industry getting more revenue.
