MIAMI—Jan. 26, 2017—Podcasting and on-demand audio are attracting new audiences, giving rise to new voices and creating new revenue sources, with public broadcasters playing a central role, according to a study by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation released today.
Yet the fast-growing podcast ecosystem is not nearly as diverse as it could be, and public radio stations are not unified in their approach, said the report, titled “From Airwaves to Earbuds: Lessons From Knight Investments in Digital Audio and Podcasting,” prepared by Lutman & Associates and Dotman Connector Studio.
Because the report examined Knight Foundation investments in both public media and for-profit companies – through philanthropic grants and the Knight Enterprise Fund, a venture capital initiative – it provides a broad view of podcasting and on-demand audio at a time of rapid growth. Knight is interested in podcasting’s potential to inform and engage communities, both as journalism and as an alternate form of storytelling.
“It’s encouraging to see podcasting come into its own as a medium that can serve the public interest, but we can’t take either its fast growth or diversity potential for granted,” said Jennifer Preston, Knight Foundation’s vice president for journalism.
The rapid growth of podcasting and on-demand audio was captured in an Edison Research survey that found 155 million Americans had listened to some form of online radio in February 2016, nearly three times the previous month. Radiotopia, a podcasting network developed by Knight-supported PRX Inc., and Gimlet Media, a private podcasting company started by public radio veterans, both report strong year-on-year audience growth.
The average podcast listener is in their early 30s, two decades younger than the traditional public radio listener. While the podcast audience has grown slightly more diverse in the past five years, according to Edison, it still skews 63 percent white.
The medium has helped to amplify some diverse voices, including NPR’s “Code Switch”; “Snap Judgment,” a show that emerged from PRX’s Public Radio Talent Quest and is co-produced with WNYC Studios; and “2 Dope Queens,” also from WNYC Studios. While white male voices dominate the top-100 iTunes podcast list, the number of women-led podcasts is growing. One of the most popular podcasts, “Serial,” was co-founded by award-winning journalist Sarah Koenig, who also serves as host and executive producer.
Knight-supported apps such as NPR One and WNYC’s Discover app are providing new opportunities for distributing content that breaks on-air conventions. These shifts point to a future where narrative audio is reliably on-demand, portable across platforms, and sized to fit different contexts and moods.
Yet when it comes to public broadcasting, NPR, PRX and a few large stations such as WNYC are leading the way. Public radio, which is still overwhelmingly powered by its terrestrial radio audience, has yet to design a shared digital infrastructure that can serve the system’s major market stations and its leading producers—although there have been major gains, the report said. The report does not cover some of Knight’s more recent podcast-related investments, including Pop Up Archive to create open-source software for organizing and publishing archival audio content from small and independent producers; RadioPublic, a for-profit public benefit corporation established in partnership with PRX; and a grant to “This American Life’s” Satchel, a tool to facilitate social sharing of podcast audio snippets.
For digital-first producers that are launching outside the confines of public broadcasting, it’s full speed ahead. These creative organizations can move quickly and nimbly to seek out and serve the on-demand audience. Benefit corporations, for-profits and nonprofits are all vying for the ears of audiences and testing new revenue models to sustain public interest programming.
Read the full report at http://kng.ht/podcasting
About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Knight Foundation is a national foundation with strong local roots. We invest in journalism, in the arts, and in the success of cities where brothers John S. and James L. Knight once published newspapers. Our goal is to foster informed and engaged communities, which we believe are essential for a healthy democracy.
CONTACT:
Anusha Alikhan, Director of Communications, Knight Foundation: 305-908-2646, [email protected]