POD PEOPLE

 

        

Podcast people, that is.

The technology known as podcasting has exploded in popularity with consumers and has had a steady,almost meteoric, rise over the past 15 years (Richter, 2021). During this time, podcasting has forced the evolution of modern-day communicators into a new realm of increasingly complex preparation including audio recording, sound effects, and podcast production. As part of the phenomenon of ‘Media Convergence’ (the practice of storytelling across multiple media platforms: print, audio, video, and online,) the popularity of podcasts reflects a modern audiences’ preferences to get their news (and entertainment) from multiple places and in multiple formats. Since the practice of convergence journalism involves getting the news to audiences where and when they want it  (Kolodzy, 2012), this type of on-demand content allows people to listen whenever and wherever they want and to multitask while doing it.

A Quick Look Back – An Abbreviated History of Podcasts

You’ve probably heard the term podcasting before now, most people have. In fact, 78% of Americans are familiar with the term podcasting and morethan half have listened to one themselves (Richter, 2021). Despite this widespread popularity, you may not realize that podcasts predate the internet and first came to be in the early 80s. Originally called ‘audio blogging,’ they were a way for anyone to record and share their thoughts, feelings, experiences, and opinions. BUT, due to an inability to widely distribute the recordings, it took 20 years or so before the concept really took off, rebranding itself and exploding in popularityas podcasting in the early 2000s (Ben, 2021). This success had some ripple effects throughout the communications industry, with content producers, writers, technicians, and audio people having to shift a bit and learn some new skills related to audio recording, production, and podcast hosting along with the potential need for accompanying websites for companion information (Wikipedia, n.d.).

But where did the name come from? You may not know this, I certainly didn’t, but the term podcast was coined in 2003 by a journalist named Ben Hammersly. By that point, people were able to download these ‘audio blogs’ to their iPods, and Hammersly began calling the process ‘podcasting,’ hence the word ‘pod’in podcasting. Since then, more than 700,000 podcasts have been created, with over 30 million episodes of content covering topics about everything from the Arts to Zombies. In other words, there’s something for everyone.

In short, podcasting has revolutionized on-demand news and the entertainment world. It gives journalists and media professionals a new way to communicate with their audiences on a variety of topics and it provides an outlet for millions of users every day.

 

References

Ben. (2021, Feb 08). Why are Podcasts so Popular in 2021? Retrieved from Brandtastic: https://brandastic.com/blog/why-are-podcasts-so-popular/

Kolodzy, J. (2012). Practicing Convergence Journalism. Taylor & Francis. Retrieved from https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/books/9781136222825

Richter, F. (2021, Jun 17). The Steady Rise of Podcasts. Retrieved from Statista: https://www.statista.com/chart/10713/podcast-listeners-in-the-united-states/

Spotify. (2021, Aug 20). Genre-Categories. Retrieved from Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/genre/topic-grid

Statista. (2021, Aug). Most commonly used apps for listening to podcasts among podcast listeners in the United States in 2019 and 2020. Retrieved from Statista: https://www.statista.com/statistics/943537/podcast-listening-apps-us/

Wikipedia. (n.d.). Podcast. Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast