Are podcasts going strong?


Some say the format is still on the rise – others think its bubble has burst. Stephanie Power went to the Podcast Show to find out.


T


he first thing you notice when you walk into The Podcast Show at London’s Business Design Centre is the noise. The main hall is filled with exhibitors and there are stages in three of the four corners. Speakers have to


compete with hundreds of people milling around. Wireless headphones perch on the back of seats. You can put them on and they’ll give you some respite, but it’s still hard listening. It’s ironic for an event that’s all about audio. Despite this, the annual Podcast Show is a great place to meet and catch up with fellow freelances working in this seemingly ever-growing industry. Honestly, everyone’s got one. If you have an iPhone, there are 2.7 million of them lurking inside the podcasts app. Only 350,000 are active – but that’s still a lot. Towards the end of 2023, there was talk of the podcast


bubble bursting. Ryan Dilley, executive producer at Pushkin Industries,


makers of Revisionist History, Against the Rules, and The Happiness Lab, says two things happened: “There was an explosion of content and many of the people starting a new show weren’t told how difficult it is to grow and sustain an audience big enough to make it profitable. Big stars, used to big audiences and big returns, must have been disappointed when both downloads and income were modest. I presume they decided the opportunity costs of making a show were too high, and backed out.


“The second part of the bubble was generated by


investors and the big platforms signing multi-million dollar deals.”


He is talking about Spotify, which started to buy out other


platforms in 2019. In early 2023, it began laying off staff. “The realisation that a vanishingly small group of podcasters are going to get very, very rich has cast a shadow


14 | theJournalist


over the industry. I don’t think this wake-up call is a wholly bad thing. However, it has caused many well-staffed podcast makers to shed employees and look for more cost-efficient formats and production models.” Podcasts generally rely on advertising. In the US, fears of a recession made advertisers more cautious. Then Apple changed the way podcasters could count listeners. This is something of a dark art anyway. Companies don’t


share their figures, arguing that they are commercially sensitive. All those millions of podcasts that people are downloading but not actually listening to? They’re not counted anymore. This in turn creates a problem for those same podcasters trying to attract ad revenue. So maybe the bubble is under pressure, but judging by the people at the Podcast Show, it hasn’t burst. What about the types of podcast that are successful? The Podcast Show has a decent collection of celebrities: James Corden, Martin and Roman Kemp, Peter Mandelson, Harry from Traitors, Fearne Cotton and Cush Jumbo. Many of these are fronting double-header podcasts that have become so popular and are cheap to make. If you are a news junkie, there is plenty of analysis to choose from. During the election campaign, you could easily spend a morning listening to the previous


day’s Newscast, Today Podcast, The News Agents, and then finish off with a bit of The Rest Is Politics. But this is mainly analysis, not news in the traditional sense. Nick Robinson, who presents Today and the Today Podcast, says: “Our podcast adds value to Today. It’s not an alternative. We will do some of the best interviews on Today, then the podcast can draw out from it – why were those questions asked and why were those answers given? What more can we do to analyse the subject and give


you more explanation? But all of this is done with the deepest roots into the foundations of the strongest news organisation in the world – the BBC. I listen to some brilliant podcasts, very


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