Historical Sketches from the World of Podcasting

What role does podcast format play in people's daily lives? Will radio stations fully transition to the digital environment? Will Podcasts Become a New Branch of Journalism? To answer these questions, consider a couple of facts from the recent history of podcasting that Nicolas Cua talked about .

We repeatedly drew attention to the topic of podcasting: we gave Casey Liss a guide to podcast processing and tips on choosing equipment shared by Dan Benjamin. In addition, we published selections of life lessons from 80 successful people and technology podcasts that are worth listening to.

As readers of our blog know, the company Audiomania is engaged not only in the sale of audio equipment, but also shares its knowledge in the Sound podcast - a program about devices, components, formats and technologies used in the audio world. A lot of experts took part in the recording of our podcast, and we already managed to begin the description of the history of the project (the first 18 issues).

In his story, Nicolas recalls the situation that developed in November 2014. He gives sketches about how at one moment the recording of the first season of “Serial” and the podcast “ Startup ” ended"Received $ 1.5 million investment (according to WSJ). At this time, the Radiotopia podcast network launched a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter, and Midroll Media was almost a year old, and its creators were preparing to launch Wolfpop, the second podcast network.

Experts began to speculate on what “good podcast recording app” and “ high-quality podcast ” in general mean . Broadcasts of networks such as “5by5” and “Relay FM” were in the playlists of almost every podcasting fan. The revival of podcasts began to be talked about in New York Magazine and other well-known publications.

The author himself has already worked for several months in a company engaged in the field of digital media, where he was instructed to compose a daily news feed. He was dying of boredom and often walked around the building where he worked to listen to the next episode of Serial.

I remember that time very well. I remember being glad that finally, more and more people started asking the right questions; they began to realize that a thing with the silly name "podcast" is something special.

Now let's fast forward to October 2015.

The history of podcasting is spoken by many journalism experts. Take, for example, Benjamin Walker, who gave a lecture on this subject in the fall of 2015 at a New York university. This lecture was mainly about the most successful Kickstarter fundraising campaign in the journalism category. It was about the 99% Invisible podcast.

Think about it, the collected $ 175,000 came from listeners, not from investors or advertising agencies.

Another expert, John Borthwick, director of the Betaworks startup studio, called the “turning point” the ability to leave the iPhone Bluetooth module turned on - listening to podcasts in the car has become easier and more convenient.

At the end of 2015, WNYC closed The Longest Shortest Time, a popular show co-created by WNYC Studios, an up-and-coming podcast recording studio. She managed to bring the WNYC radio station to a new level, and this decision surprised many. But Gimlet in October 2015 released a new mini-season “Startup”. This show for a short period of time the show again attracted attention.

The first season was bildungsroman [rus. educational novel - approx. trans.]. He seemed to tell us the story of growing up, filled with genuine emotions.

In comparison, the second season was similar to a Wired article of very good quality, when the presenter discusses a topic in detail. They lost contact with the listener. The new episode definitely returned the show to the old format and deeply touched my old heart.

Radiotopia launched another fundraising and shared its plans:

The whole system rests on three pillars: listener support, donations, and corporate support. We need resources to come from different and reliable sources.

We want as many people as possible to get access to quality podcasts. We also support our partners - this time it is Slack, whose tool is the main method of communication in Radiotopia.

You should pay attention to the Bill Simmons podcast. 10 episodes of the podcast have been downloaded almost 4 million times . Squarespace website designer, SeatGeek ticketing site, and Universal Studios, which was promoting the movie "Steve Jobs," came to him with their ads.

Simmons claims that now he receives more money than when he worked for ESPN and received a salary. He regularly promotes his show on his Twitter profile, where he has 4.7 million followers. And, most likely, Simmons will promote his podcast even more diligently when a new show with his participation appears on HBO.

Gimlet Media’s annual advertising revenue is $ 2 million. Midroll Media is now owned by the EW Scripps Company, a huge corporation founded in the nineteenth century. This is the first major podcast deal.

BuzzFeed also started podcasting, creating the “#podsquad” project, which mostly people from the radio work on. WNYC, in order to somehow cope with the situation, began to independently distribute its content.

In the case of NPR, everything is not so simple. However, NPR has released Invisibilia, one of the fastest growing podcasts, and still has no equal in creating quality coverage.

Nicolas talks about the constant connection to the Web in cars, the growing popularity of mobile devices and the impact of the global network on everyday life. All this makes the future, in which traditional radio stations exist, less and less real.

Of course, there may be problems associated with finding new podcasts. Theoretically, it can be solved using a search engine that will index RSS feeds and search for podcasts based on user preferences.

It was one more year. So much has happened and so much remains to be done. I never thought that I would be carried away by something so unusual. Podcasts? Radio? Digital format? What the heck? I hope another year awaits us with exciting podcasts, new voices and stories.

We at Audiomania not only participate in the recording of the podcast, but also directly sell specialized equipment , which is also used by amateurs and professionals in the field of podcasting. Particular attention should be paid to portable recorders , which allow you to record in almost any conditions and environment.