The gold rush is over. Now podcasters are picking up the pieces

It’s a information universally acknowledged that past twelvemonth was the podcast world’s annus horribilis.

You wouldn’t person predicted this conscionable a fewer years agone erstwhile the manufacture was experiencing what appeared to beryllium an unstoppable boom. Sure enough, the alleged “dumb money” poured successful arsenic large investors sensed a golden unreserved and started throwing astir currency similar drunk multimillionaires connected a bachelor enactment travel to Vegas.

Spotify led the spending spree, dropping implicit a cardinal dollars successful the sector. Across 2019 and 2020, the institution paid implicit $US200 cardinal ($300.8 million) for Joe Rogan’s fashionable speech amusement and started gobbling up podcast companies, spending $US230 cardinal connected Gimlet (Reply All, StartUp, Science Vs.) and $US200 cardinal connected Bill Simmons’s sports podcast empire The Ringer. Amazon entered the fray, coughing up $US300 cardinal for Wondery (Dirty John, Dr. Death, The Shrink Next Door), portion Sirius XM topped that with $US325 cardinal for Stitcher (Comedy Bang! Bang!, Office Ladies, How Did This Get Made?).

If those numbers look brainsick to you, congratulations connected your concern acumen. The sharper commentators expressed concerns that this bubble couldn’t perchance clasp aerial for excessively agelong earlier bursting.

Kellie Riordan: “I’m cautious of the commentary that’s saying podcasts are over. They’re not.”

Nicholas Quah, the podcast professional for New York mag and Vulture website, wrote a wide work file astatine the opening of 2023 titled This Could Be A Rough Year For The Podcast Industry. It turns retired helium could person confidently replaced “could be” with “definitely volition be”. It’s telling that past year, lone astir 220,000 caller podcasts were created, a driblet of astir 80 per cent from the halcyon days of 2020, erstwhile much than a cardinal were made.

There was nary uncertainty that the assemblage was going gangbusters up to that point. Before Serial premiered successful 2014, hardly anyone knew what a podcast was. By 2020, determination were 1 cardinal podcasts, and, depending connected who you believe, that fig has astatine slightest tripled and perchance quadrupled since then. Estimates of the worldwide assemblage are astir 500 million.

The question is: what precisely were these investors looking for with each those shows and each those listeners?

“I deliberation they were looking for 3 things,” says Kellie Riordan, the laminitis and manager of Australian podcast location Deadset Productions and formerly the shaper of powerhouse ABC podcasts specified arsenic Conversations and Ladies We Need To Talk. “The archetypal was advertizing revenue. The 2nd was IP (intellectual property) connected archetypal concepts to crook them into a film, a TV bid oregon a publication deal. The 3rd was a accumulation pipeline.”

There were a fig of problems with these goals, but the main 2 were these: the marketplace was massively overvalued and the radical with the chequebooks were not crossed however overmuch time, wealth and patience it took to really marque a well-produced podcast series.

Some shows did extremity up making the elusive but hoped-for modulation to TV (see break-out box), but the rivers of golden investors thought would travel from advertizing turned retired to beryllium much of a babbling brook than a raging torrent.

“The podcast advertizing exemplary is fundamentally broken,” says Avery Trufelman, who roseate to prominence arsenic a podcaster successful the US with 99% Invisible and past started her ain palmy series, Articles Of Interest, astir the humanities and sociological interaction of covering and fashion. “The exemplary is each astir who tin nutrient a wheelbarrow afloat of shows. It’s fundamentally saying, ‘Make the astir worldly imaginable to warrant the astir listeners, truthful we tin pull advertisers.’”

Avery Trufelman: “My presumption was that I’d ever person to person a time occupation and I’d bash audio connected the broadside due to the fact that that was my passion.”Credit: Ash Berdebes

Deadset’s Riordan concurs: “All the advertizing wealth goes to the apical 20 shows, and it’s each gamed astir churning retired precocious volume. Some radical person cottoned connected to this, and they’re conscionable putting retired immoderate aged drivel arsenic agelong arsenic they tin marque a batch of episodes to pull advertizing dollars. I deliberation that’s a contention to the bottom, and I deliberation it volition beryllium a existent shame if it continues.”

When the bubble burst past year, the effect was devastating for galore moving successful the industry. Spotify implemented 3 monolithic layoffs successful their podcast workforce wrong 5 months. Other large players, specified arsenic Vox Media and Pushkin Industries, made akin cuts. Even NPR was not immune to the downturn – aft announcing a fund spread of implicit $US30 million, they chopped unit by 10 per cent successful March past twelvemonth and axed mainstay shows specified arsenic Invisibilia and Louder Than A Riot.

No 1 seemed immune to the downturn, nary substance however almighty oregon popular. In April 2022, Spotify ended its $US25 cardinal narration with Barack and Michelle Obama’s accumulation company. And, astatine the extremity of past year, the institution announced it was nary longer producing investigative writer Connie Walker’s Stolen (which won some a Pulitzer Prize and a Peabody Award) and Jonathan Goldstein’s Heavyweight, a pioneering amusement that galore critics (including this writer) see 1 of the champion podcasts ever made.

Although the US scenery is looking grim, Riordan feels that the Australian marketplace has not suffered to the aforesaid extent.

Podcasters wanted a movie oregon TV deal: Eric Bana and Connie Britton successful the Netflix bid Dirty John.Credit: Netflix

“There’s decidedly been a settling aft the golden unreserved of 2020, but we didn’t person the aforesaid ridiculous over-inflation and over-valuation here, truthful the emergence was not arsenic steep, and the autumn has not been arsenic steep either,” she says. “And look, I’m cautious of the commentary that’s saying podcasts are over. They’re not.

“Last year, I enactment retired a survey called PodPoll, which is the biggest survey of podcast depletion successful Australia. We recovered that astir a 3rd of Australians perceive to podcasts regularly now. That is simply a marketplace that’s growing. Are they increasing astatine the aforesaid complaint everyone predicted successful 2020? Perhaps not. But they’re inactive growing.”

For those inactive moving successful the sector, galore are recalibrating their goals to suit the much austere times. The latest play of Trufelman’s Articles Of Interest turned up successful galore lists of the champion podcasts of the year, including The New Yorker and The New York Times. But she has decided it doesn’t marque fiscal consciousness to marque different play successful 2023.

“I’m spending this twelvemonth penning a publication astir fashion,” she said. “I did the math, and it worked retired amended to bash that compared with what Radiotopia (who antecedently funded the show) could wage me. I person nary thought however I’m going to money Articles Of Interest successful the future.”

Trufelman knows galore colleagues who are either struggling to get enactment oregon leaving the industry, “and my bosom goes retired to radical who began moving astatine Gimlet during the roar years, and present the towers are falling down. But I’m coming from a antithetic time. I started astatine 99% Invisible (in 2013), and my presumption was that I’d ever person to person a time job, and I’d bash audio connected the broadside due to the fact that that was my passion.”

Similarly, Nick van der Kolk is simply a lifer successful the podcast world. Since 2005, helium has been making Love And Radio, a revered amusement that breaks barriers erstwhile it comes to content, storytelling and production. Classic episodes person included stories astir a achromatic antheral befriending members of the Ku Klux Klan to person them to quit, a antheral who lives successful a emotion triangle with 2 pistillate enactment dolls, and van der Kolk getting a weapon pulled connected him by a feline who runs a portion nine from his apartment.

“I made Love And Radio for escaped for the archetypal 7 years,” helium says. “So if each this wealth that poured successful during the roar is nary longer there, there’s inactive much than erstwhile I was coming up. And that wealth created a batch of mediocre shows. You had these celebrities who were fixed a cardinal dollars to marque a podcast connected the broadside that they didn’t truly springiness a crap about. And present they’re gone, and I’m sorry, I’m not that bittersweet astir that.”

As for the future, “I consciousness rather optimistic. Podcasting is inactive truthful young. There’s truthful overmuch much to research and truthful overmuch country to experiment.”

The occupation for those podcasts that research and experimentation is that they instrumentality a batch of clip to make, and the existent advertizing exemplary is allergic to them. As Trufelman notes, “The short-run deep-dive bid wherever you person to interrogation 40 radical to marque six episodes? Unless thing radically changes with funding, I can’t spot however that’s going to enactment immoderate more.”

This is atrocious quality for those of america who privation precisely that benignant of show. The bully quality is that galore of those podcast producers aren’t going anywhere. Their dedication to telling bully stories is excessively strong.

“I’m moving connected 3 stories astatine the infinitesimal that truly consciousness similar once-in-a-lifetime things,” says van der Kolk. “One of them I’ve been moving connected for implicit 13 years. I archetypal contacted the feline successful 2011, erstwhile helium was successful prison.”

“I consciousness optimistic astir Australian audio storytelling,” says Riordan. “When I question to overseas conferences, radical determination cognize about, and love, the champion shows we marque here. They cognize we marque astonishing communicative long-form series.”

Perhaps Avery Trufelman puts it champion erstwhile asked to sum up the situation.

“It’s the extremity of the satellite arsenic we cognize it,” she says, shrugging. “But I’m going to support making podcasts. I’ll find a mode somehow. I’m ne'er going to stop.”

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