Why Are Podcasts Popular?

Podcasts have become a ubiquitous source of entertainment, knowledge, and humor in my life. So much so that my friend Jarred caught me off guard when he questioned their very existence. In his mind, podcasts are a step backwards technologically. We’ve created TV and YouTube, which use infographics, CG, camera techniques, etc. to enhance the story. Thanks to these tools, we are now in the Golden Age of Television and 5 billion YouTube videos are watched everyday.

By their nature, podcasts don’t have as wide of a swath of storytelling tools at their disposal, but they are the most popular they’ve ever been. Edison Research found that 42 million people listen to podcasts every week, so it seems logical to ask: if visual mediums are using the most cutting edge storytelling techniques to reach new heights, then why is a simplistic audio-only format increasingly gaining popularity? In the age where video is king, why have large businesses, such as the New York Times and Vox been devoting their precious resources to the second coming of radio? In essence, I’m attempting to answer Jarred’s question: why podcasts?

Democratization of Creation

In the internet age, media creation is accessible to anyone. In the same way that YouTube empowers anyone with a camera to make a movie, podcasts allow anyone with a microphone to make a radio show. You can buy two Blue Snowball Microphones for $100, which were the exact model that carried the dramatic science fiction podcast Welcome to Nightvale to a world tour level of popularity.

The other aspect of democratization is that if everybody is able to make a podcast, everybody will. The accessibility of the medium allows for every niche interest to be represented by at least one podcast; whether you love crypto currencies, rewatching twin peaks, or professional wrestling there’s bound to be a show for you. As someone with niche interests, it’s validating to hear podcast discussions about topics that none of my friends want to talk about. That elusive and magical feeling of finding a group with the same niche as you has probably been the impetus behind the creation of many of these podcasts. When you catch that lightning in a bottle, it’s hard not buy microphones and share it with the world.

Listener Multi-Taskability

Most popular media beside music is visually based and sometimes you just gotta pay attention to things that aren’t your phone. You can’t avert your eyes away from the road for four minutes and seconds to watch the new David Dobrik Vlog (yes every video is 4:20), you can’t effectively choose which toothpaste to buy at the grocery store while reading Pride and Prejudice, and when you’re at the office you certainly can’t talk about the guys you’ve fucked. Because podcasts are audio only, you can multitask throughout your day while still being entertained. David Dobrik’s antics with Jason Nash now comes in a weekly audio format, and your desire to be told a well told story while in the checkout line is fulfilled by Serial instead of Jane Austen.

Multitasking isn’t merely a feature of podcasts, it’s an essential ingredient to the medium’s success. Podcasts wouldn’t be as popular if they didn’t allow people to be inject entertainment into the inherently boring parts of everyday life. Judge John Hodgman’s audience would be a fraction of what it is if you couldn’t do anything but hear him solve trivial internet disputes. I’m not saying that podcasts don’t stand on their own, they just scratch our collective and insatiable itch for entertainment in scenarios where media has previously been able to reach.

Personality-Based Media

My initial obsession with podcasts came from when I was depressed. All of my friends had moved to college and I was the one schlub who still lived with his parents while aimlessly attending community college. I was almost always alone and desperately craved the nerdy conversations that my friends and I used to have about our favorite video and board games. Podcasts successfully mimicked and even surpassed these conversations that I could no longer have. Frankly, the Giant Bombcast and Idle Thumbs made me feel like I had friends again. This very real and personal connection that I have with people who haven’t the slightest idea that I’m alive is called a parasocial relationship. While the public views most parasocial relationships as delusional, it provided me with an important social connection that was damn near the only thing that propelled me from one day to the next.

Parasocial relationships aren’t a new phenomenon. The term was developed in 1956 to explain audiences’ illusionary relationships with traditional celebrities, but the nature of celebrity in the world of podcasts take on a new form. You might see Mila Kunis be interviewed on The Tonight Show, but the audience is inherently distanced from her because of the stage, the make-up, the live audience, and the pre-planned conversations. Each of these elements remind you that you are the audience – the distant observer who is in no way part of the conversation. Podcasts strip all of this artifice away to leave a more naturalistic product. There’s no more bright lights and applause cues, only Mila Kunis and the interviewer. Only two people talking much in the same way as they would while chatting at a bar after work.

The intimacy of the conversations produced in this format transfers to the listener. As the audience, you feel like you’re overhearing their conversation from across the bar. The act of eavesdropping is so personal and seemingly realistic that when listening week to week, you develop a deep connection with people that you will never meet.

Conclusion

The immediate accessibility of media in today’s media landscape has created what’s called the Attention Economy. Where businesses of the past were once focussed on your money, they are now focussed on your time. With the amount of apps, games, and social media platforms that are downloaded on your phone, the attention economy is a highly competitive market. Once these services have your attention, they do everything in their power to keep it. This is why Netflix auto plays the next episode and why Facebook seamlessly loads new content as you infinitely scroll.

While podcasts aren’t as devious in their attention grabbing intentions, they still are a perfect fit for the Attention Economy. While everything is fighting for your attention, the nature of podcasts being audio only becomes it’s saving grace. You can’t always be binging Stranger Things, but podcasts have the unique ability to flexibly fulfill our need for constant entertainment.

Podcast’s multi-taskability is crucial in the attention economy. Being audio only means that podcasts side-step the competition with most social media platforms because they aren’t even fighting for the same kind of attention. While most competitors in the attention economy are fighting for you eyes, podcasts keep your eyes free to see Instagram pictures of your friends’ weekend trip.

With podcasts, talk is cheap. Everybody has made any type of podcast that you can imagine, so there is always a show to cater to the whims of your mood or interest. Attention is a scarce resource, so if there weren’t all these podcasts that immediately appeal to someone, they would take their attention elsewhere. It’s crucial for someone to think “I want to listen to a podcast” and then find a show that instantaneously satisfies their attention.

In that case, why would someone choose to listen to a podcast instead of music? Well, the two mediums serve very different needs of the consumer. Where the experience of music can’t be well replicated with any other medium, podcasts are a continuation of the visual mediums that people spend the majority of their time with. TV, Youtube, and Podcasts all have genres in common: fictional dramas, comedies, interviews, trivia shows, and talk shows to name a few. While these are previously established genres, the podcast format brings a different kind of flavor to your standard talk show or drama. Intimacy with the hosts and the parasocial relationship you form with their personalities help to keep your attention episode to episode. If you feel connected to a host on a podcast, and you feel a bond with them, you are going to give them more time and attention just as you would with someone you cherished in real life.

Podcasts were invented before the social media revolution that we live in today but they’ve adapted to thrive in today’s marketplace anyway. Since they were added to Itunes in 2005, they’ve been gaining popularity year over year. While they are an incredibly fascinating and important part of our media landscape, podcasts aren’t discussed with the same gravitas that we talk about other popular media. I believe that the more we understand the media we consume, the more we understand ourselves. Podcasts have captured the world’s attention, and in a society where the phrase “time is money” has become literal, it’s imperative to understand the things that we give our attention to.