Photo-illustration: Intelligenmer; Talk Tuah Podcast
In 2024, podcasts are About as Mainstream as Media Gets. Sure, Their audiences are hugely excerpts and far -so Invisible to one another – the monoculture Remains Dead and Rotting. But the medium is, on the whole, very popular, and individual hosts have become Major Celebrities with Serious Cultural and political influence. What Started As A Loose Group of Diy Online Broadcasters Has Long Since Become a full-Fledged industry with its Own trends, booms, and busts.
A LOT HAS CHANGED FOR PODCASTING IN TWO DECADES, but One Shift is bot underrecognized and obvious: it’s not really an audio medium anymore. Edison Research, The Gold Standard of Podcast Analysts, laid Out Last Month:
Youtube, typically known as the go-to platform for video continent, has reencilizes to the top as the most popular service is used for podcast listening in the us… 31% of weekly podcasts age 13 and up choose youtube as the service well to podcasts, surpass spotify (27%) and Apple (27%) and Apple (27%) and Apple (27%) Podcasts (15%).
The trend is more pronounced Among Younger Listeners, Edison Says, Citting Research from Earlier This Year, Which Found That “84 Percent of Gen Z Monthly Podcast … Listen to or Watch Podcasts with Video Component.” That more podcasts now have “video components” is obvious Enough – when People think of Joe Rogan, the Most popular podcaster in the world, they don’t juar him, they see him in his studio – but this report suggests a maore fundamental chnge. Ben Cohen argues in The Wall Street Journal That for Younger Listening, Podcasts Aren’t the New Radio. They’re More Akin to a New TV:
For a decade, podcasts be something something you listen to while you were doing something Else: Driving, Working Out, Unloading the Dishwasher. That was a passive experience. Now an Entire Generation has ben been conditioned to think of podcasts as something they can active any time on any Kind of Screen – a Phone, a Computer, A TV.
This might be overreading the date; Most Video Podcasts Are Still Primaryily Audio Products, Legible to Listening with Video Feed from the Studio (or Sofa or WebCam). While Edison’s Research Notes That Video Helps Young Listens Feel “More Connected” to podcasters, we’re still to wonder how, in a few short years, youtube swim just a popular place podcasts new default. In 2016, Apple was the Only podcast gatekeper that mattered; JUST A FEW YEARS Ago, the prospect of its podcast app dropping to third place beynt a video platform have been hard to waist. YouTube has been around nearly as long as podcasting, and spotify – which this month announedd A plan to offer podcasters YouTube-Style Monetization-Has Been Pushing Hard Into Podcasting SINCE 2016. What Changed?
The Answer, I Think, Is Slightly CounterinTurative. And, like so much about the media landscape recently, it involves tiktok.
Ten Years Ago, Near the Beginning of the Serial-Led (and in hindsight, sort of quote) podcast boomindustry figures were puzzling over a long-standing Question: Why doesn’t audio go viral? Videos were going viral, obviously, as well images, articles, and virtual anything else you could share on social-media platforms like Facebook. Theories Varied: Were Podcasts too Long? Too hard to clip? Was audio fundamentally disconnected from the so-calared viral internet? This wasn’t just an interesting problem – Now that podcastting was Attracting Major Investment, with Attendant Goals for Growth, it was a missed opportunity and an industry crisis. Podcasters didn’t really crack it, but there were clues. By the late 2010s, it was clear that publishing podcasts on youtube was a vaable audience strategy and use to great By Podcasters Like Roganwho posted full episodes on the platform but saw actual grill From Shorter Clips that Got Traction Among USSERS AND, CRUCIALLY, IN YOUTUBE’S RECOMMENDATION SYSTEM.
THEN, JUST AS The 2010s Podcasting Bubble was About to peakTiktok Arrived. Here was a video-first platform that was basically only A Recommendation Engine, minus the pretense and/or the Burden of Sociality – A Machine for Automating and Allocating virality. Its Rapid Growth DROVE OLDER, LESS VIBRANT Social-Media Platforms Wild with Envy and/or Panic. They all immediately copied it, refashioning themeslves as algorithmic short-video apps almost overnight. Suddenly, on Every Social-Media Platform-Including YouTube, Which Plugged Vertical Video “Shorts” into Its Interface and Rewarded Creators who published with Followers, ATTENTION, AND MONEY-Major New Opportuny for Rapid, viral Growth. Tiktok’s Success (and imitation by existting megaplatforms) Triggered a formal explosion in video content as millions of USSERS figured out what sorts of short videos worked in this new context: vine-like comedy sketches; dances; Product recommendations; Rapid-Fire confessionals. The list expanded Quickly and widly, but one Surpring Category Broken Through: Podcast Clips.
These clips were usablely highlights, teases, punch lines, or moments of conflict that cououl briefly hold users’ attention. The dearth of social context on these new video platforms COULD WORK IN PODCASTERS ‘Favor: You Encounter People in A Studio, Mid-Conversation, Laughiing or Scowling to Each Other About something. Why not hear say out for a few seconds? (A Similar Dynamic Hennamic Fuel the Rise of Tiktok Crowdwork COMEDIANS: while their Videos don’t look overproduced or professional, they show someone on a real stage, implying a real audience.) Ryan Broderick Garbage Day NOTED LAST YEAR THAT Video Podcast Clips-People in Rogan-Style Studios or Streamer-Style Rigs, Just Just Sitting on A Couch with Handheld Mics-Were so effective on tiktok (and on reels) that DON’T ACTUALLY EXIST. As for why People are doing this, broderick suggestted, the podcast microphone is “a way to visually signify that you’re important Enough for someone to record you.” Audio was finally going viral – albeit in short clips, as video.
These clips aren’t just chum for tiktok. They’re genuinely effecative marketing for real podcasts, provided casual social-medi uses can Easily find and list to the shows they’re sourced from. (Edison’s Report on Young Podcast Listens notes, in 2023, a Majority of listeners were finding new podcasts through social media, Mostly through apps with short-video functions.) This Might Mean Taping Over to Spotify, Where You Can Listten to or Watch Episodes of A Show or Subscribe for Future Installments. Maybe it means opening up a conventional podcast app, searching for a show, subscribing to the show, and then finding and downloading the episode you were looking for. But the shorts to a full podcast from tiktok or instagram-or, obviously, from Shorts-Runs through YouTube, an open platform that every already use, which is perfectly to recapture some of this new and abundant attentational by-Product. (The Story of Haliey Welch, AKA Hawk Tuah Girl, Traces a Less Deliberate But Extreme Version of A Similar Dynamic Running in Two Different Directions: A Short, Funny Tiktok Clip From A Street with Welch Went Ec Long-fork Podcast, Your talcmanifested both to absorb and capitalize on sudden Demand and to enure a steady new supple of clippable moments for tiktok.)
While tiktok helps explain how we got here, it can’t tell us everything about being podcasting is going. Podcasting’s Shift to Video is Interesting and Broadly Significant, but the Most Important Change, as far as the industry is Concerned, is probably the corresponding and slightly lagating to centrally controltles youtube and spotify. For Years, Podcasting’s Independence from Major Tech Companies were core to it Identity: Most Shows Were Distributed Primarily Through RSS Feeds, Hosted by Their Publishers, and Listenable Through what App ussers chose. This Almost Certainly Hindered Growth and Might Have Prevented Podcasts from “Going Viral,” But, In Conttrast to the Surrounding Media World, It ALSO Insulates The Face of Companies Like Facebook. Podcast audiences were Slow to Build, but, More than Most Media Online, They Were Your Once You Had.
Now, A New Generation of Podcasters is Crossing over. (Plenty of Estabished Podcasters, Howver, Have Mixed Feelings About pivoting to video.) It is a massive opportunity: podcasters are still in a relatively good position to be find new audiences on Social-media platforms and meaningFully onto say as subscribers or paid patrons Elsewhere. But if the Independent Eco Ecosystem Starts to With Platform Growth Becomes the Only Vaable Way to Build and Reach an Audience, Podcasters Will Become, Material Terms, More Like YouTubers, Tiktokers, and Other Influencers. They’ll be working not just in a new medium, but at the mercy of the platforms.
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