Where is podcasting moving fastest?

• Voxnest has published The State Of The Podcast Universe Report (pdf). It looks at the podcast marketplace across the globe, and reports that podcasting is growing fastest in India; while the podcast market in China is “huge”: earning at least ten times more revenue than the US.

  • “Most would classify [Google Podcasts] as a big disappointment”, says the report, placing the app at #5, and noting that Android is responsible for only 23.7% of all podcast listens (and smart speakers just 1.3%). Spotify, the company’s data shows, is a strong second - responsible for 25% of the downloads of Apple Podcasts.
  • The company says that it’s already paid over $1m to podcasters who use their dynamic ad platform. They saw a 21% increase in new podcast episodes on their own platform during the year.

• Omny Studio has indicated it is applying for IAB Certification. They join Voxnest/Spreaker, Megaphone, Libsyn, and ART19.

• The Amazon Alexa smart-speaker service struggled to cope with new registrations on Christmas Day. According to AppAnnie, the two smart-speaker apps, required to set Alexa or Google devices up, appeared high in the charts throughout the day, though:

  • The Amazon Alexa app was a top 10 app in 11 countries (iPhone); and in 6 countries (Android).
  • Google Home was a top 10 app in 9 countries (iPhone); and in 12 countries (Android).

• If you’ve been gifted a smart speaker, “OK, Google, play the news from Podnews podcasting news” is supposed to work (or set it up in your news preferences); or add Podnews to your Amazon Alexa flash briefing.

  
  This link is no longer available, as at Aug 9 2023

Stats and data

• After their invention in 2004, the total amount of available podcasts is estimated at 609,000. The total amount of books published just this year… is over four times larger.
• Longer, customized version of ads have 43% greater recall compared to a shorter, more conventional ad for the same product, says Nielsen’s Ad Effectiveness study.

Aug 9 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

Listicletastic

• The best new drinks podcasts in 2018 (Drinks Adventures)
• Hall of fame podcaster Gary Leland posts his top ten crypto podcasts.

Thank you to Andrea McNamara who is our latest supporter. She opted to use our new non-Patreon supporter’s page. Thanks to her, we’ve begun working on a supporter’s dashboard: which you don’t even need a password to use.