Voxnest Debuts State of the Podcast Universe Report 2019

RADIO ONLINE | Thursday, December 26, 2019 | 5:12pm CT

Voxnest

2019 has been a banner year for the podcasting industry. While podcasts were gaining some serious momentum in 2018, the explosion of growth and evolution of content this year took podcasting to the mainstream. With over 800,000 podcasts in existence and the industry on track to make $1 billion in ad revenue by 2021, Voxnest has released "The State of the Podcast Universe Report 2019" to examine how podcasts became part of more than 62 million listeners' weekly routines this year.

A big element of launching podcasts into regular conversations has been the Voxnest calls the "Hollywoodification" of the industry. While celebrities certainly weren't foreign to the industry prior to 2019, some of the biggest names in pop culture and entertainment -- former President Barack and Michelle Obama, Conan O'Brien and Will Ferrell just to name just a few -- made their debut (or are about to) into the podcast stratosphere.

In conjunction with the big names, an enormous amount of media and entertainment franchises started dipping their toes into the podcasting pool this year. Sony Music announced joint ventures with podcast producers in the U.S., UK and Italy, while Apple announced that podcasts are on the way, iHeartRadio made Shonda Rhimes the executive producer of their original podcasts and Marvel signed a multi-year agreement with SiriusXM and Pandora for a variety of shows set to launch in 2020. Plus, Entercom, one of the biggest radio conglomerates in the U.S., acquired podcast production companies Cadence13 and Pineapple Street Studios.

While these media giants just started to get their feet wet, Spotify dove straight into the deep end. They started the year off by announcing their plans to spend $500 million acquiring podcast startups. The company snapped up podcast publisher Gimlet Media -- home to popular shows like "Homecoming," "Reply All," "Heavyweight" and "The Clearing" -- along with Anchor, podcast recording and distribution platform. It also improved podcasting features on Soundtrap, an online music studio they purchased in 2017, and acquired Parcast, another podcast production company, making Spotify the second-largest podcast company.

While the amount of growth isn't projected to be as large as last year, Voxnest reports there's still an estimated 42 percent increase, which puts advertising revenue for 2019 at $678.7 million. With growth also comes an evolution of advertising delivery mechanisms. While the IAB's latest study, from June, reported that baked-in ads still made up the majority of ads, at 51 percent, the firm feels confident that dynamically inserted ads have now surpassed its counterpart.

With more availability for buyers and sellers -- thanks to the definitive data that this format offers -- and the chance for smaller podcasters to monetize their shows, the report forecasts these conversations are only the beginning.

To view the report, visit http://bit.ly/PodcastUniverseReportEN