We’ve heard plenty of bad news about lay-offs, cutbacks and ‘consolidation’ for podcasting in 2023, so will 2024 herald similar bad tidings or can the industry weather the storm, hunker down and come back out fighting?
Having worked in digital media since 2005 and produced my first podcasts in 2007/08, I’ve seen plenty of highs and lows. Ideas stream ahead, technology catches up, or technology streams ahead and the ideas catch up and there’s always some new developments on the horizon, some new ‘thing’ to catch people’s attentions and drive creators and investors to rush in.
AI of course is on everyone’s lips and having tested and trialled many of its capabilities from a production perspective, there is plenty that AI is doing to make production workflows faster and easier. It will be a case of trial and error as we go along but there’s no doubt that its capabilities will only develop over time.
Which leaves us focusing - as we always should be - on the content and the audience. Everyone and anyone it seems can present and produce a podcast - although more of the former and rather less of the latter is more evident - and while CPM rates are holding up, the ad money is either concentrating more in the big players, or spreading itself thinner across the wider spectrum of content now available.
Which brings me back to the audience. if you’re a traditional big news publisher, or a main stay digital publisher, your audience is there in front of you every day and the secret is now to serve them with podcasts that likewise reflect what they want and expect from your digital properties.
However, what works for websites, won’t cut it as podcasts. People want engaging presenters and speakers, experts who are passionate, enlivening and authentic - listeners want to feel part of the show and identify with the people and topics they’re listening to. Expertise in writing does not equate to expertise in talking.
But publishers shouldn’t be afraid of or shy away from what they do well, in covering the news, doing the actual reporting and being the feet on the ground. Audiences want to be taken there, not just in instant articles and MBMs, but in reactive shows, giving them immediacy and relevancy to the topics close to their hearts.
If you’re at a press conference, take your listeners there as soon as possible. If you’re covering an event as it’s happening bring the listeners to it, give them the taste of being with you and then provide the analysis and context.
Of course with news rolling on an ongoing basis it does mean producing more audio content than ever before but in the same way that digital sites do it, podcast shows should look to do it too. Give audiences a deeper dive 1-2 times a week but fill in the gaps around it as well. Keep them coming back for more.