The Most Important Thing Podcasting Needs To Talk About In 2025 by Tom Webster
A look at how podcast audiences perceive their own media consumption habits. Looking at what media formats respondents to The Podcast Landscape 2024 consumed both more and less of this year, the data suggests younger folk are eschewing audio for video in general, not just in podcasting. Webster reflects on his own struggle to get his son to listen to podcasts, and proposes his issue was not selling spoken word as a concept instead of podcasts specifically. Spoken word audio is the core of podcasting, and in 2025 a concerted effort should be made to teach people the value and special nature of spoken word.
This year several brands, including Arm & Hammer, Miko, and Snapdragon have dipped their toes into using influencer-made marketing content in their programmatic ad inventory moved through Amazon, The Trade Desk, and Google-owned demand-side platforms (DSPs). Several agencies interviewed by Digiday have done similar work, allowing influencer marketing to break free of purely living on in the social media sphere.
The Right Side Up crew have written up a list of predictions for the coming year in podcast advertising. They anticipate a standout media mix modelling (MMM) partner to arise in the field, terminology developed for audio-posted-as-video, more detailed YouTube attribution for podcasts (labeled a blue-sky hope), podcast advertisers will get into streaming audio, and a research partner will integrate cross-channel reach and frequency for traditional brands. For a look back at the year behind us, Acast has 5 key podcast trends from this year in On the Mic: Top Consumer Podcast Trends of 2024.
The Year In Charts, From Podcasts to Startup Funding by Kaya Yurieff
The Information has constructed a table of all the ‘superstar’ podcast deals signed this year, from Armchair Expert’s $80 million Wondery deal to Rogan’s reportedly $250m multi-year contract with Spotify. They also note linear TV has declined in popularity with advertisers as spend continues a downward trend while influencer marketing continues upward. Influencer marketing is indeed interlinked with the biggest podcasts, but there’s also potential in the long tail of podcasting’s creator economy to continue upward momentum.
Triton Digital Releases the November 2024 Canada Podcast Ranker
In November the Canadian podcast landscape remained largely stable, with the top three entries for cancon French-language podcasts and English podcasts remaining the same from October. The top-ranked overall podcast, not filtered from Canadian-production, was Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard. Their Top Networks report finds CBC/Radio-Canada took first place with 1.85 million weekly downloads, just above Wondery in second place with 1.78 million.
As for the rest of the news…
- Edison Research has published the 2024 edition of The Latino Podcast Listener Report
- Audio Flux is holding its first ever fundraiser
- Nielsen has partnered with attention measurement provider Realeyes to launch new tools for evaluating creative effectiveness.
- Music journalist Sowmya Krishnamurthy covers podcasting’s role in this summer’s intense beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar.
- Quill and Canadian Business have partnered to release The Moment, a podcast about pivotal moments in the history of Canadian founders and entrepreneurs.
- The RedCircle blog has a new post covering trends seen in podcasting throughout the year.
- Barometer has launched contextual targeting and brand suitability targeting for programmatic audio.