Podcasting predictions for 2022

Dec 15

As we wrap up the year that was 2021, I take a look at some predictions for the podcasting space in 2022.

There has been a huge amount of growth in the podcasting space in 2022, and in fact more broadly since 2018/19. It's been a very interesting time to be developing in this space, and developing a business that is in such a growth heavy industry.

The focus for 2022 from what I can see is going to be on increasing audience size for existing shows. Yes, there are a lot of new podcasts coming onto the scene, but for those of you that already have a show, you might be starting to see a bit of a plateau and you're wondering how to expand into new markets.

I touch on the value of our Pod Lovers Community and the "Premium Experience" that will be coming for growth strategy specifically in 2022. Stay tuned for that.

I also touch on the way advertising it set to ramp up in 2022, and how the listener feels about the ads that are currently being presented to them via podcasts.

This year also saw the dawn of the podcast subscription model for major players like Apple Podcasts. Can we call this a success for the independent podcasters, at this point - my response is a big fat no. The subscription model still doesn't quite sit right with podcast listeners and needs further development.

With Facebook and YouTube both entering into the world of podcasting, and major media networks expanding into audio content, 2022 is set to be a big one for the industry.

What a great time to be a podcaster!

Transcript:

00:00
Welcome to Pump Up Your Pod did at the time of recording this, it is Wednesday the 15th of December. So it is right at the pointy end of 2021. And it was my birthday two days ago. That was fantastic. I'm currently on the coast, enjoying some beautiful sunshine, the beach has been amazing. The weather has been just insane. And we've got both sides of the family down here as well. So it's been lovely, I've got my parents, my brother, and then my husband side as well. We just all chill out, we really liked doing this kind of thing as much as we can to get everyone in the one place. But they all have their own apartment so that it feels like you can be connected to them for a longer period of time. Because to me, Christmas feels very rushed. You see people for a day, people are full, they drink too much, well, maybe not so much in my family. But there's a lot of food. And there's a lot of just feeling exhausted getting from place to place. And I feel like you have to squish to my gin to a short period of time. So probably about four years ago or so my husband and I decided that we wanted to try and get and it isn't mission to try and get people all together to a different place, go on a holiday, and spend some more quality time with each other. We don't have to be in each other's faces the whole time. In fact, we're not of course, but there's all the Poppins and there's just you know, meeting up at the beach or walking along in Esplanade and catching up having coffee having breakfast, all those kinds of little micro Hangouts that can go into something bigger if we go up into someone's apartment, and just chill out without it feeling like it's so hectic and just squished into one thing.

So to organise and, and do that sort of thing definitely takes some effort, but I have felt that it has been so worth it because it deepens the connection with people individually. And you can have more detailed conversations and more fun because you're more relaxed, and it just feels like a nicer environment. So definitely something that I would recommend doing. If you know your family is up for it. It's really, really cool. And I like the fact that we're not all in the same space as well, like not all in one house. Because I think if you're with anyone for the whole time, especially if there's parents and things involved, and you know, we've got young kids, there are a lot, you know, it's a lot. So you want to be able to take them away and just chill and have some time where you're not in everyone's face and feel like you're inflicting yourselves on people all the time. So yeah, but it's been really, really nice. I've been very much enjoying it.

Coming into 2022, I wanted to do a little bit of a prediction. What is podcasting going to look like? In 2022 It's a pretty exciting space to be the industry as a whole has really been experiencing a phenomenal amount of growth. And we'll continue to experience it because it is a fairly new industry in the grand scheme of things. So it makes it really fun to look at where it's potentially going to go. And for those of you who have podcasts out there, this is really good information for you to have because it will help you kind of figure out what you want to do in 2022 as well. And whether you're on the right path or what other avenues perhaps you can explore or just kind of give you that reassurance that what you're doing is worthwhile. Because I know podcasting can be a lot, it can be a lot of effort, especially if you're doing it all by yourself. But knowing what is coming helps you be ready for it.

It's just like when Instagram let's say or any of these platforms started to become developed, you know, and those that got on those platforms early have experienced, obviously a lot of growth because they've been on there so long and they're very familiar with that platform and they know how it operates and you know their followings have got quite big because of the fact that they got in early. This is a similar thing.

So if you're in early enough and you really understand the game and you've got the traction and the audience and the listenership then the things that you can do with it are much greater than someone that waits too long to get started in it.

04:52
The first thing I wanted to talk about is what has been happening in the podcast subscription space. So you would have seen this year that Apple podcasts and Spotify and you know, some of the other players there have announced the subscription model. So you can instead of you clicking like you used to on the earlier iOS is and you know, earlier versions of Apple podcasts and things like that, you would say that you were subscribed to a show, and just click a button that would subscribe, that wording has changed to now be follow, you can follow a show, there's a little plus button. What that has meant is that now the subscribe, if you want to subscribe to a show, it's going to cost you money. I have been really intrigued to see how that goes. Because subscribing to a show is very different to like subscribing to a Netflix service, you subscribe $12 $17 per month, and you get access to a whole bunch of shows everything that's on that platform, it doesn't work the same way yet, in the podcasting space, if you want to subscribe to a show, then you have to subscribe just to that show. And that can cost you like $5 a month, $8 a month, $3 a month depends on what they've set, the person that has that show, they've set a subscribe price, and then you pay that price for that.

If you want to subscribe to a network, like wondery, for example, you can subscribe to a network and then you have the opportunity to listen to all the shows that are on that network. Now that's great. If you love a bunch of wandering shows, then that makes sense. You could subscribe and then you get no ads, and you're supporting them and that sort of thing. But if you have multiple shows that you like, and they're on different networks, subscribing to each of them is going to cost you like maybe $5 a month. And that really adds up if you're a person that listens to a lot of podcasts.

I'm sitting there thinking, How much money are you really going to want to fork out to support these shows ad free? And it turns out that that is a question that a lot of people have been asking, how is this actually going to work, it's only been viable, financially viable for big shows and networks, they seem to be able to do it because they already have a big listenership. And they already have a decent market size. So if they want to hit and say, you know, subscribe for early release content or ad free listening and that sort of thing, people are doing it. But if you're an independent podcaster, and you're wanting to try and get people to subscribe to your show and pay money for it, that's not working as well as I think the platforms were hoping that it would, because in the grand scheme of things, when you are a new podcast are relatively new, what you're trying to do is get an audience. So if you're making them pay for your content, right off the bat, you're not going to grow the audience unless you're a particularly niche area. And the content that you're providing is something that they can't find for free somewhere else, or it's very hard to. And you feel that that is valuable. And people actually want to pay you for that. Most of the time. People aren't going to want to pay for that. So the subscription model isn't really helping independent podcasters make money, because they're not finding that a lot of people are actually wanting to pay them for that. And that makes sense. And I understand.

So I don't think the subscription model as it stands at the moment is something that is really going to be valuable for independent podcasters. And that will be something that I think will continue in 2022 Because most people want to grow their audiences. And they want to have their content available to as many people as possible, with no barriers. So that's what I'm thinking about subscriptions. And that has certainly been backed up by a lot of data. And a lot of articles and things that people have written about this particular topic, everyone seems to be on the same page as to what that actually looks like. With that in mind, the big move in 2022 is definitely going to be towards audience growth and reaching and reaching new listeners with new listeners come greater opportunities for sales and ad revenue.

So how do you actually gain new listenership? That's an interesting question that is going to be something that is developed a lot over 2022 and beyond. Because certainly with podcasting, you can plateau, you get that initial push and people knowing about you from like your social media platforms and your family and a little bit of word of mouth and that sort of thing. But then you kind of hit that network, you've kind of tapped them out. And then how do you get the actual extra audiences that you need to actually grow your show after that, or on top of that? And that's something that will be developed in 2022 and is a really interesting place to be exploring at the moment, there are so many avenues that you can explore to actually grow your show.

And I'm not going to go into all of them here because that certainly this is more of a prediction episode more than a How To Grow Your show type episode. But if there's something that you're interested in, then you should definitely join the pod lovers.com. Because that is the free community that I run, where I give little tips and things every now and again and talk about that sort of stuff. And then in 2022, we're going to open up the premium level experience where all it is, is just for those that have podcasts that are looking to grow them and how to do that.

So there's plenty of things that we're going to be developing there for 2022 From my perspective, but listenership and growing your show is a lot of what will be happening in the talking about in 2022, because there are a lot of podcasts now in the market that are starting to plateau, and then wanting to know what they're gonna have to do to really reach that next level. Once you have reached that next level, and then you're kind of growing more, and you're getting consistent downloads, and you're, you know, gaining a larger audience.

One of the next big things for 2022, which we're seeing a lot of already is the ad revenue that is coming. Specially in Australia, there has been a really big uptake in advertising on podcasts, you may have even seen if you're an Australian, actually, I don't know what it looks like in America and those sorts of things. But seeing actually podcasts being advertised on billboards now, and bus shelters, and things like that. So you can definitely see that the podcasting networks, the radio networks, they're really seeing the value in podcasts for listenership and then what the advertising dollar actually gets you from there. And so people are actually putting a lot of money behind advertising the show to reach a larger audience, because there's a lot of marketing and advertising that can actually be pumped through a podcast. And you can make significant money. Everyone can make significant money, the brands that are trying to advertise on the shows and the people that have the shows as well.

There's a few different ways to make money out of advertising, if you have a podcast as well. And that's going to continue to develop in 2022. So the advertising section of podcasting in 2022 and beyond, is going to continue to grow. And that is a very exciting place to be because there is a lot that you can do on a small scale, and a big scale as well, depending on how big your podcast is.

So we're going to see more people and brands jumping into the podcast space in 2022. For sure, when we look at the predictions outlined by Insider intelligence, they released a global podcast listener forecast. In 2019, global listenership was sitting at about 274,000,270 5 million people worldwide. This year, we've seen that jumped to 383 million. And by 2024, they're predicting that that listenership is expected to increase to over half a billion listeners actively listening to podcasts on a regular basis, which is at least once a month. So the industry is still small. And the growth is huge. Over the next few years and beyond. As podcasting becomes like a new YouTube a new way to engage with content creators. In a way, that's way less effort than a YouTube channel is, which is pretty cool.

With all that in mind, that should paint a bit of a picture as to what 2022 is really going to look like the focus is going to be on audience growth, audience size, because there are a lot of podcasters in the market right now who are starting to plateau and are looking for ways to increase the listenership of their show. That is one way that things are going to develop, there are going to be a lot more ads ad spend is going to increase a lot more. And that doesn't have to be brands and things coming to your show and wanting to sponsor it. That can be the way that you start using your own ads to sell your own things on your show as well because why not? If you have a product you should be selling that or at least talking about it on your show. And it doesn't have to be a physical product, it can be an online course you know private coaching, mentoring whatever, but that is something that you if you do not do already you should be doing. Because the other interesting thing about that is that when a caste and Nielsen did a survey of this, the data also actually showed that 73% of podcasts listening is take action after hearing an ad, with 55%, saying they have a more positive opinion about brands who advertise on their favourite podcasts as well. So that's pretty cool. Even if it's your own stuff, knowing that people don't hate it. They're okay with you talking about something, a host read ad that's done really well, on a show is proving to be very well received.

And so that would be something that I would look at for 2022 is how to increase the monetization of your show as well. And just knowing that, because podcasting as a space is getting bigger, if you don't have a show already, and you feel like it's ripe for it, like you could do it, you want to invest in the time to actually do it, then this is the time to jump in. Because the industry is still growing. And you have the opportunity now to grab listeners in a space where we know lots of people are wanting to listen to shows. And if you're providing quality content, then they're going to be more likely to listen to you versus someone who has not as good content or quality audio.

That's my wrap up of 2022. Basically, it's all looking really good for podcasters. And certainly as an industry in general. There's some exciting things happening for Bamby Media in 2022 as well, which I won't go into here. There's lots of development that needs to happen before I can announce any sort of thing to do with that as well. But yeah, it's an interesting time, and it's an exciting time to be in this industry. That's what's going on. I hope you've had a good day and I will talk to you later.