For book publishers the message should be clear – audiobooks are a major asset but podcasts can be too, if publishers are willing to embrace the possibilities.
Podcasts, for so long the loss-leader of the audiobook world, has lately been taking big strides into the grown-up world of monetised audio, as TNPS regulars will know.
Among the prime movers Podimo, a Denmark-based operation that turned podcasting on its head with the outrageous idea that consumers would hand over hard cash to listen to podcasts.
How they laughed! No-one would pay money to listen to a mere podcast. Hey, Morten Strunge, I’ve got some magic
beans here if you want to buy them!
The laughter quickly subsided as consumers clamoured to board the Podimo platform.
Six months later Podimo had raised $16.8 million in funding for expansion.
Another $13.5 million quickly followed, enabling Podimo to expand into 20 Latin American countries.
As 2021 ended investors threw another $78 million Podimo’s way.
Just this past week Podimo acquired the Dutch podcasting outfit Dag en Nacht as it consolidates its position in western Europe.
This post isn’t about Podimo, and the above is just to make the point that podcasting is no longer audiobooks’ embarrasing little brother. Big money is being ploughed into podcasting because there is big money to come out of podcasting. Today there are any number of serious podcasting platforms out there fighting for consumer dollars, and among them of course are the big audio players like Spotify, and now YouTube.
In doing so YouTube will be competing with Apple which ran with the headline last week “Apple Podcasts introduces Follower metrics, MP3 support for subscription audio, and more.”
Further YouTube is planning to integrate podcast data into “industry standard podcast measurement platforms” like Nielsen, Chartable and Podtrac, although as PodNews.net reminds us Chartable has in fact been acquired by Spotify.
PodNews.net tells us that none of this was mentioned by YouTube’s director of podcasting, Kai Chuk, at Podcast Movement Evolutions last month, but PodNews.net has an 84 page presentation showing what YouTube is intending.
To which we can add a Guardian report that showed 63% of podcast listeners pay attention to podcast ads, which of course is exactly the kind of thing YouTube will be looking to exploit.
For book publishers the message should be clear – audiobooks are a major asset but podcasts can be too, if publishers are willing to embrace the possibilities.
