Primarily, listening has remained the traditional form of entertainment which began in ancient times with groups of individuals sharing myths, legends and anecdotes. With the progress of time and technology, this form of entertainment revolutionized and took a new shape with the introduction of radio. Emerged during the era of World War II as a means of communicating political messages, radio’s popularity was rampant and became the only wide-spread means of listening around the world.
Progressing into the 1990’s, radio stations began uploading their output on to the internet and the market for pirate online radio shows went from nonexistent to heavily populated. This practice was commonly referred to as “audio-blogging” where anyone could make voice recordings and upload for free downloads. Later on, however, Ben Hammersley (a renowned technology journalist) created the word “Podcasts” in 2004 which encapsulated the market of audio-blogs and online radio shows.
Podcasting boomed once Apple had it set as a standard app on its devices. With the advancement in technology, podcasting subscriptions were developed in a way that any uploaded audio clip could immediately be received by any subscriber.
Apple’s data collection in 2013 revealed that there had been more than a billion podcast subscriptions through the iTunes store, which was carrying over 250,000 podcasts in 100 languages. In 2016, Edison Research showed from their study that 21% of all Americans over the age of 12 had listened to at least one podcast in the past month – which amounts to approximately 57 million people!
Podcasts grew on folks for many reasons, the flexibility of use is one of them. You can listen to your favorite podcast station wherever and whenever you want. How convenient is it to remain informed and jam to your podcast even while you’re on a jog? On top of that, podcasts are not extensively hampered by internet regulations so there’s a broad freedom of speech and thoughts. They’re also safe from the cynical glare of the internet which means that podcasts aren’t subjected to trolling and abuse.
Lastly, they’re inexpensive to produce, regardless of the quality. Advertising rates are magnetized by podcasting as compared to TV or radio to the extent that podcast advertising revenue is projected to increase by 25% on a yearly basis which means it carries the potential of becoming a billion dollar industry.
There are now groups that discuss their favorite podcasts and the trend will continue to grow because of the convenience, the ease, the abundance of knowledge, the trust in the host of the podcast and the entertainment.
What are some of your favorite podcast? Let us know in the comments!