Month: May 2022

Tom Webster from Edison Research presented some interesting figures to the large audience in attendance today at Radiodays Europe.According to the Share of Ear figures this year, podcasts now have 5% of all audio listening in the USA, up from 1% in 2014.During the height of the 2020 lockdown in the US, podcasting was at 6%, but as people have headed back to work this has eased.Podcasting used to be 4% of all spoken work audio consumption, but now sits at 20%.Today 13-24’s who listen to spoken word audio, are spending 35% of the time listening to podcasting, and only 16% with AM/FM radio.In a list just released in the past week the US top genres by reach are:
Comedy
News
Society & Culture
True Crime
Sports
TV & Film
Business
Arts
Religions & Spirituality
Education
Health & Fitness
History
Science
Music
Leisure
Webster told the audience that the top four of these, Comedy, News, Society & Culture and True Crime are separated from the rest of the pack by quite a distanceComedy at around 40%, News just under 30%, Society and Culture around 25% and Crime next before the rest drop away.Of the top 20 podcasts in the USA all except for 2 come from these genres.On designing a successful podcast he says it is important to know where a podcasts fit into the listeners life.Webster says that habit is particularly important, and creating habit for the prospective listener draws them in.This habit should include new episodes either daily or weekly, but consistently, and that the podcasts should be reliable, topical and always updated, as these are the shows with which people build a habit.On building a successful podcast in 2022, Webster says, “The first thing, and the most important thing for me is habit. It is incredibly important to be able to build a habit, which is certainly something that a News podcast can do. “To me it’s important to think about a a brand and a feed. An RSS feed that delivers predictable, reliable and consistent week after week if not day after day, is a thing to build a brand upon.”He says it is difficult to launch a short run series as the risk reward ratio is much steeper than doing something that runs daily or weekly.However, he says that it is possible to build a brand around a series of sequentially short run podcasts on the same topic or a similar theme that can again build habit.Familiarity is the next important value for a successful podcast, and this can be “…something that people are familiar with on the outset, whether that is a human, or a format or whether that is a concept, that’s all very important.“Other than that, the third way to succeed in 2022 is just straight up murder, true crime.” […]

Daniella Murphy, creative director at Acast UK talked about how to make podcasts pay without selling out, in today’s Podcast stream at Radiodays Europe.“Ads don’t need to be a tax that poor pay to consume good content… Ads should be just as enjoyable as the content,” she told conference delegates.She also urged podcast advertisers to “take the conversation into the real world.” To illustrate the point she told the story of a bank that teamed with a podcast to create a card game called ‘Money Talks.’ Each card asked a question to get people having conversations and asking advice about money, something that people in the British target audience were reluctant to do.As part of the promotion for the game and the bank, Acast and the agency responsible got many podcasters to play the card game in their podcasts and include the conversations they had about money. The response was so strong that there was huge demand for the card game. “It took the conversation beyond audio into the real world,” said Daniella.Daniella’s Ten Commandments for good podcast advertising are:
Respect your audience – “it’s an intimate environment, don’t shit in my head,” with over the top or disrespectful messages.
Worship simplicity – “what is the single most important thing to communicate,” take away all the rest and put that in the ad.
Be believable – “the audience feel they’re your friend… friends don’t lie to you.”
Embrace emotion – “people are full of emotion” put it in your podcast ads
Stories not scripts – you will get your message across better by telling stories not making hosts read boring ad scripts.
Show don’t tell – “use immersive sounds, place people on location by letting them hear the kitchen or the factory… don’t rely entirely on words.”
Never copy and paste your creative – “tailor it to the podcast medium, which is a highly personal medium.” Don’t just use radio ads on podcasts, tailor your treatment to the podcast environment.
Beware of Cliches – “is there a more interesting way to say it than using advertising or compliance jargon.”
Think beyond the podcast to the real world
Have fun!
In the same session, Rob Greenlee from podcast hosting company Libsyn said podcast listeners are increasing everywhere and the industry is “expecting a huge increase in monetisation right across the world.”“The beginnings of podcasting were largely anti-commercial, but things have changed over the 18 years that podcasting has been around. Now people want to get a return on the investments they have made in podcasting,” he told conference delegates.He showed a chart illustrating the penetration of podcasts into major world markets as a percentage of internet users. Canada and Sweden are doing very well and  there is growth happening on most developed markets.Why should people advertise on podcasts?“To reach and target matched niche audiences,” said Greenlee. “Radio is not made in a way to take advantage of niche audiences but podcasts can. It is also a safe medium for advertisers – something their brand would like to be associated with.“Campaigns are usually longer and frequency is important, so is the value of the message and the trust between the podcaster and the audience. Advertisers get a targeted educated audience with good disposable income through podcasts.”Greenlee predicts that podcast revenue worldwide will be worth $2 billion this yearTo be successful in monetising your podcast Greenless says you should ask who is your customer, the audience or the advertiser? “What you answer will have an impact on your growth and who you are trying to reach.”“Podcasting builds strong trust and relationships with the audience and it builds advertiser trust,” he said, outlining the types of advertising in podcasts.One of the significant changes is the increase in dynamically inserted ads and the decrease of baked in ad reads that are recorded when the podcast is recorded and remain in the show forever. The new term being used is not ‘baked in’ but ‘faked in’ advertising – the host still reads updated ads, but they are dynamically inserted, even into old shows.In Greenlee’s opinion, putting the ad within the content (mid-roll) is better than putting it at the beginning of the content (pre-roll) because it connects better to the host and the content that people are closely listening to.For less commercial shows, paid podcast subscriptions and crowd funding through donation platforms such as Patreon are more successful than inserted ads, because those podcasts may not have enough listeners to gain much advertising.In a session in the same stream Julie Shapiro, Lory Martinez and Arif Noorani discussed their podcast company philosophies.Arif explained that CBC Podcasts are a mixture of repurposed radio shows and new bespoke shows.“Narrative storytelling is where we excel… We want our content to do well on the world stage.”Lory’s company takes a pragmatic approach: “We ask, will this resonate with people in other countries, other than the one it has been made in.” She used the examples of a story about a Mexican girl. “It was not a Mexican/American story, it was a story of a girl looking for her missing mother.”New podcast genres that the panel identified as likely to take off in the coming year in include:
Biographies and memoirs
Science Fiction
Comedy
Children’s audio
It is no surprise that News podcasts are so numerous in popular podcast genres. Tom Webster said that his Edison Research studies have confirmed that habit is a big factor in success.“When news podcasts are released at the same time daily you build a habit around them… predictable reliable and consistent delivery produces rewards.” […]