Now & Next Podcast S2E4 – Where Is Podcasting Headed After a Phenomenal 2019?

Hot Pod’s Nicholas Quah sits down with Leora Kornfeld for an insightful chat about the trends redefining the podcast industry and what to keep tabs on in 2020.

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Hot Pod’s Nicholas Quah on the Flourishing Podcast Industry

In this episode of Now & Next, we journey into the business aspects of one of the media landscape’s buzziest areas: podcasting.

Last season we examined the emerging podcast industry with Vancouver podcasting company Pacific Content’s Steve Pratt and Dan Misener. Since then, their company has been acquired by Rogers Media, while another company we talked about during that episode, Gimlet Media, has been acquired by Spotify for $230 million. The latter also acquired Parcast and Anchor earlier this year, spending over $400 million on podcasting acquisitions.

Such acquisitions speak to the industry’s real-time build-out as well as the rapid rate of growth it’s experiencing. For example, there were some 500,000 podcast series last year. Today, there are around 800,000 of them.

The ad revenue supporting the burgeoning industry is similarly impressive. Between 2015 and 2019, revenues jumped from just over $100 million per year to over $600 million annually.

Our guide for this episode is Nicholas Quah, founder of Hot Pod, the leading newsletter on the podcast industry.

In this episode, Nicholas Quah:

  • Takes stock of the key moves that occurred in the industry over the past year (2:19)
  • Reflects on how the influx of money in podcasting will impact the industry (6:50)
  • Ponders how business models will evolve in the podcasting space (15:04)
  • Shares his thoughts on what the next round of big moves in podcasting will imply (20:07)

Download a transcript of the episode

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Credits 

About Now & Next

Now & Next is a podcast featuring in-depth interviews in which experts take a closer look at emerging trends and the digital transformation of the media and entertainment industries. Now & Next is brought to you by the Canada Media Fund, produced by Katie Jensen and recorded in Toronto at Vocal Fry Studios. Leora Kornfeld hosts the series.