How the trend of listening to podcasts evolved?

According to Statista, by the end of 2022, it is estimated that the number of podcast listeners will account for more than 20% of the total number of Internet users worldwide (about 424 million people). We seem to be living in the era of podcasts, when every day there's a new channel, or a new episode of podcast.

Podcast is defined as a digital audio file consisting of speech, music, etc., uploaded to the network for free access by listeners.

Unlike radio, where scheduled programs are available and disappear shortly after they air, podcasts are a form of on-demand content. Listeners can freely choose to listen to podcasts anytime, anywhere, and can rewind as they like.

History of podcasts

The closest predecessors to podcasts are radio and blogs.

Radio was the world's first non-print-based mass media. It was the first medium that allowed us to spread information over long distances to many people at once through voice. On the other hand, blogging exploded in the early-mid 2000s with the birth of a series of legendary forums, the childhood of many people like Yahoo 360, WordPress, TypePad...

If podcasts inherit from radio the characteristics of transmitting information through audio lines, with blogs, podcasts are similar in personal and amateur nature.

Radio, with a history of more than a century, resonates with the birth of the Internet in the 21st century, a premise for the birth of podcasts later. The popularity of blogs is testament to the need and potential for the world to launch a new media - podcast.

But the advent of podcasts does not mean that radio or blogs are on the decline. They coexist, being media with different contexts and audiences.

The beginning of podcast

The development of podcasts is closely related to the development of the music player genre, especially the Ipod.

The word podcast is a combination of Ipod and broadcast. Originally used by Apple users to refer to broadcasts available on Apple's iTunes platform. 

In 2005, "podcast" was officially recognized by the Oxford Dictionary as the keyword of the year.

What are podcasts in the future of media?

According to statistics, by 2022, the majority of Americans have heard a podcast at least once. Spotify's year-end statistics also show that there are more than 1 million 2 podcasts posted on the platform within 1 year of 2021, with 80% being independent creators.

The podcast market in Vietnam is also very active, especially after 2020 with about 50 Vietnamese podcast channels released every month. This number will increase 5 times in 2021 with 100-250 new podcast channels opened in a month.

With the rapid development of podcasts, it can be said that in the future, this will be one of the key platforms of digital media.