If someone had asked you five years ago to check out their podcast, would you have had any idea what they were talking about? Chances are, you wouldn’t have. Yet, somehow alongside the apparent death of traditional radio, podcasts have become one of the newest and most consumed forms of media in recent history. Since 2006, the number of people who have listened to a podcast has skyrocketed from 10% to roughly 44%. Most people have heard one, and almost everyone knows what they are, but what makes them good in the first place?
First, it’s important to consider the immediacy of the format. In the same way that we want to watch TV on our time, and not a predetermined time decided by a group of executives that is beyond our control, we want to listen to things on our own time, too. We want to have control over the content we are consuming, and podcasts give us a way to experience informative audio this way — similar to how we stream music on Spotify and Apple Music, we can now stream the modern equivalent of radio programming.
Not all podcasts are made the same, though. You have your informative, news-driven podcasts like The Daily by The New York Times, NPR’s Up First, or Today, Explained from Vox and Stitcher. Then there are podcasts like Pod Save America by Crooked Media that make politics approachable and digestible for modern audiences, fusing the serious subject matter with a conversational, laid back tone. There are insanely popular murder mystery podcasts like My Favorite Murder by Exactly Right, or podcasts that focus on human interest stories and celebrity interviews like Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert. Crooked Media’s Keep It! examines pop culture every Wednesday and most of your favorite youtubers like David Dobrik on Views or Cody Ko on Tiny Meat Gang have transferred over to the format on the side.
In essence, there is quite literally a podcast for any and everything. That niche, underground interest you feel like only you have? Yeah, there’s probably a podcast for that. Got a topic you’ve been curious to learn more about, but can’t find an effective place to learn about it? Yup — go search for it on the Podcasts app. It’s probably there.
It also helps that, when we spend a lot of our time in our car or on the bus commuting to school or work, podcasts are a great way to pass the time — and not feel like we’re wasting it. They are easy to incorporate into our daily routines while also providing a dose of something new every week.
Podcasts are quickly becoming one of the most popular formats for media consumption, with about 300 new podcasts being added a day. So, yes, it’s a lot to comb through. The difficulty isn’t choosing to start listening to podcasts — once you do, you’ll be hooked — the issue is choosing what to start with.