The Future of Podcasting: A History Lesson
Welcome back to my five-part series on the future of podcasting! If you missed part one, you can check it out here — I explain my interest in the space and raise the question of why podcasts haven’t gone mainstream after the viral success of Serial. To answer this question, it’s crucial to first understand the history of podcasting beyond Serial, which is what I will explore in this post.
Though the inventor of podcasting is under dispute (a Texas company claims to have patented the idea in 1996), most people credit Dave Winer and Adam Curry. Curry wrote a program to automatically download Internet radio shows to his iPod, and Winer tweaked the design and started to explore opportunities to distribute content. As a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Winer connected with journalist Chris Lyndon, a prolific blogger. Together, Winer and Lyndon started the first podcast in 2003, Radio Open Source (it’s still around today!).
The word podcast first appeared in an article from The Guardian’s Ben Hammersley, who covered this new form of content in February 2004. Hammersley described the content as downloadable amateur radio, and suggested calling it “podcasting” (an homage to Apple’s iPod, where most early adopters listened), “guerilla media,” or “audioblogging.” Podcasting seemed to stick, and Libsyn launched as the first podcast hosting platform later that year, allowing anyone to create and host content for a small fee.
2005 was a particularly exciting year for podcast fans. In June, Steve Jobs announced that iTunes would start carrying a library of 3,000 free podcasts. In July, George W. Bush became the first president to have a weekly address delivered via podcast. The first Podcast Awards were held in August — “This Week in Tech” won the People’s Choice Award. In October, Yahoo launched a podcast site that allowed users to search for, subscribe to, and review podcasts. By December, the New Oxford American Dictionary named podcast the “word of the year.”
Podcasting continued to grow over the next decade — the percentage of Americans who had heard the term “podcasting” increased from 22% in 2006 to 48% in 2014, according to Edison Research. However, the buzz around the space died down significantly. Most podcasting innovations were one-off experiments from individual producers looking to monetizing content. In 2006, Lance Anderson embarked on the first podcast live tour. In 2007, Jack and Stench launched the first paid subscription podcast at $5/month. In 2012, Radio Ambulante completed the first successful Kickstarter campaign for a podcast. Soon after, 99% Invisible creator Roman Mars raised $170,000 from more than 5,500 backers on Kickstarter to fund the podcast’s next season.
The release of Serial in October 2014 completely transformed the podcast landscape, introducing millions of new listeners to podcasts. Within a month, the show hit one million downloads per episode — it took This American Life four years to hit the same benchmark. By March 2017, episodes from Serial’s season one had been downloaded 175 million times. Why was Serial so popular? The content was undeniably suspenseful and addictive, but the producers also benefited from the fact that weeks before Serial’s launch, Apple updated iOS to include a native, undeletable podcasting app.
The introduction of Apple’s podcast app, which now accounts for ~70% of podcast listening, was a significant step towards making podcasts more accessible to the average consumer. Listeners no longer had to go to iTunes, find and download an episode, and sync it with their device — they could now stream content directly through the app or download it to listen later. Apple had first released a standalone podcast app in 2012, but it was difficult to find and widely panned for a clunky user interface. The 2014 app introduced all iPhone users to podcasts through an icon on a homescreen that they couldn’t delete.
Listeners who opened the app for Serial were one click away from “Top Charts,” where Apple highlights the top 150 podcasts. While waiting for the next episode to drop, many Serial fans started to explore other shows, and some became loyal listeners and advocates for other podcasts. These listeners have helped a number of podcasts reach “viral” status, including Missing Richard Simmons, an investigation of the disappearance of fitness guru Richard Simmons, which attracted millions of weekly listeners.
The most popular podcast of this year is undoubtedly S-Town, a collaboration between Serial and This American Life that hit 40 million downloads in the first month. However, other podcasts have maintained impressively large listener bases without widespread media attention. How Stuff Works, which publishes 15 podcasts, had nearly 38 million global unique streams and downloads in May 2017. Freaknomics boasts eight million monthly downloads, while WTF with Marc Maron had five million monthly downloads in 2015 and likely has significantly more today.
How do everyday individuals recording in their garage compete with the established personalities who can get an interview with Obama? Some join podcast networks, which are companies that help podcasters produce, distribute, and monetize content. Networks help podcasts cross-promote their content, distribute via social media, get prime placement in the iTunes store, and sign deals with large advertisers, among other services. In exchange, these companies typically get a cut of the advertising revenue generated by the podcasts. Top podcast networks include Wondery, Midroll Media, Feral Audio, and Earwolf.
Established media companies have also started to create their own podcasting arms to deliver content. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Financial Times have all launched or significantly upgraded their podcasting teams in the past two years. NYT launched a podcast team in March 2016 to create news and opinion podcasts, and currently has six active podcasts, including The Daily. According to Podtrac, NYT podcasts had nearly 14 million unique streams and downloads in May 2017.
What‘s the next big development in podcasting? It’s hard to say, but right now all eyes are on TV adaptations. Gimlet Media’s StartUp is being turned into a TV series called “Alex, Inc.” on ABC. Julia Roberts is reportedly the frontrunner to star in a TV adaptation of Homecoming, another popular Gimlet show. Independent podcast Lore signed a deal for a 10-episode series on Amazon. Podcast producers hope that these shows will have a Serial-type effect on podcasts, converting millions of TV watchers to podcast listeners.
Thanks for reading this week’s article! Next week, I’ll dive into what the podcast landscape looks like now, the main drivers behind growth in the space, and a few reasons why podcasts aren’t more mainstream.
Can’t get enough of podcast history? Check out this cool interactive timeline from Vanessa Quirk at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism.
