Why People Like Podcasts

Last night I was listening to a great new episode of The Wolf Den, my favorite podcast about podcasting, with guest Sarah Mosel.

For those of you unfamiliar with the podcast industry, Sarah is one of the heavy hitters in the sector. After ascending to a VP position in New York Public Radio (basically *the* beating heart for all of public radio and the birthplace of nearly every big talk-driven media name you know) she made waves by joining the C-suite at Acast for a short stint before ending up at Market Engenuity as their Chief Podcasts Sales & Strategy officer.

You should check out this episode for a great look into the incredibly innovative and fast changing world of podcast ad sales. Podcast ads are ads that hosts (mostly) read themselves because they believe that what they are pitching is good and listeners actually (mostly) enjoy listening to - I cannot overstate how important the popularity of podcast ads has been to the growth and development of this new on-demand, decentralized media.

Anyways, I just wanted to share a little nugget that co-host and EVP of sales and development for podcast advertising at Midroll Lex Friedman dropped around the 17:39 mark:

"I think that people are jumping into podcasting...for three reasons: 1) for the on-demandness, 2) the actual quality of their content, and 3) the fact that it doesn't sound like radio, and the ads don't sound like radio ads."

It's hard to argue with that.

Podcasts are a digitally-native medium of communication. They are fundamentally differentiated from the centrally owned, operated and broadcast media that came before it. We are just at the beginning of figuring out what is possible with podcasting. And it is pretty damn exciting to watch, er, listen to.