Podcasting Will Be Worth $4 Billion By 2024

According to figures from trade group IAB and PwC, the podcast advertising business in the United States is expected to grow to an estimated $4.2 billion in 2024. Variety reports: The sector hit $1.45 billion in 2021, representing 72% annual growth, according to the report. In 2021, U.S. podcast advertising revenue grew twice as fast as the total internet advertising market, which was up 35% last year, according to the 2021 PwC/IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report. Still, U.S. podcast advertising revenue is poised to continue double-digit growth, growing more than 100% over the next two years to an estimated $4.2 billion in 2024, per the report.

According to the latest IAB/PwC podcast report, three key factors are driving podcast ad revenue growth: the ongoing increase in listeners and content; increased use of automated ad tech, as ad revenue served via dynamic ad insertion (DAI) has almost doubled in two years to take 84% share in 2021 (versus ads embedded in podcast audio); and growth of ad spending in categories that historically had lower spend volumes like sports and true crime. "Everything right now is aligned to drive growth," said Chris Bruderle, IAB's VP of research and insights. "There's more engaging and diverse podcast content than ever, and that is translating into larger, more attractive audiences. But more than anything, podcasting has proven that it can deliver beyond direct-to-consumer advertising to support brand-building and drive business outcomes."

Once in a lifetime

[CastrTroy]

The big growth in 2021 was due to the pandemic. You can't keep on expecting the same growth, year after year. If anything, the number of people listening will go back down as people start socializing more.

Same thing with Netflix. They got a huge number of new users during Covid, and now the shareholders are getting mad that some of the users left. Nobody in their right mind thought that some of those new users wouldn't leave after they were able to go outside and enjoy the real world. But the market demands

Re:

[guygo]

same as it ever was...

overly optimistic.

[bloodhawk]

growth numbers sound huge, but they also coincided with a pandemic. overall 4 billion isn't a big market but I seriously doubt they can sustain that growth post pandemic to achieve that anyway.

No, it won't.

[devslash0]

I heard this prediction before, many years ago. The reality was the complete opposite.

Re:

[youngone]

I'm hoping that when people start saying things like: " ...podcasting has proven that it can deliver beyond direct-to-consumer advertising to support brand-building and drive business outcomes." they've just killed the whole thing stone cold dead.
Let's hope so.

Who Has Time To Listen?

[Tempest_2084]

It seems that everyone and their dog has a podcast these days. There's such a high signal to noise ratio that most get lost in shuffle. Of the ones that actually manage to attract a decent sized following, how long can they maintain it? I have 15 to 20 different podcasts on my phone about my hobby, but I think I've listened to about 3 or 4 because I just don't have the time to dedicate to more. Not to mention most of them are very amateur (and that's being kind) and tend to just disappear as suddenly as they came. I just don't see this huge untapped growth potential the 'experts' are talking about. I wouldn't say podcasts are a fad, but I don't think they'll be a cornerstone of the future of entertainment.

Bingo!

[PPH]

"Everything right now is aligned to drive growth," said Chris Bruderle, IAB's VP of research and insights. "There's more engaging and diverse podcast content than ever, and that is translating into larger, more attractive audiences. But more than anything, podcasting has proven that it can deliver beyond direct-to-consumer advertising to support brand-building and drive business outcomes."

Worth $4 billion, divided by 4 billion podcasts

[Echoez]

Since the barrier to entry to create a new podcast is approximately $0.05, the total number of podcasts will continue to increase while the market share of any individual podcast (besides a tiny handful of popular ones) will continue to shrink. To me, advertisers shouldn't care as long as they can insert their ads in as many as possible.

But this is no way means that individual podcasters will make any money. Trying to gain marketshare means nothing if 10,000 podcasters give up only to be replaced by 10,000 new ones.

I for one...

[JustNiz]

...am looking forward to soon becoming a multi-millionaire from my podcast on paperclip collecting.

Just gimme AM and some Art Bell

[future assassin]

and I'm good.

That's not podcasting

[Casandro]

That's publishing audio on some commercial web sites. That's not a sustainable business model as it has lots of losses.

Normal podcasts finance themselves by donations. You just give your listeners a way to express gratitude by paying and the money starts streaming in with minimal losses.

Re:

[93 Escort Wagon]

Yup. It's not podcasting... they've reinvented talk radio.

Never got into podcasting

[bsdetector101]

Never got into podcasting, had other things I rather do or listen to.

Cute, but

[MitchDev]

I listen to a lot fewer podcasts than I used to, but they are all hobby podcasts, with no ads.

I am so sick to death of ads I have dropped many old interests where ads were annoyingly prevalent. I now use ads as a list of "do not do business with if at all possible"stores/businesses/websites...

Who cares?? Just let us enjoy our podcasts

[AneleWrites]

The point when big corporate starts saying 'big potential for profits in XYZ' is when XYZ starts dropping in quality. I'm a fan of podcasts (audiodramas, audiobooks and educational, not really Men with Microphones) and I'm sure the reason they're so popular is because they're an easy way to consume media while you do other stuff. That's it. But because companies and individuals don't know how to pick their battles, it's an industry that's already being flooded and oversaturated, and in a few years we're goi