Research Finds that the Podcasting Boom is Officially Over!

I have to admit that I have never personally been much of a fan of podcasting. I tried it myself and, truth be told, it’s just more of a pain to maintain than you might initially think. Typically, the biggest problem seems to lie in the fact that if you’re covering topical content A) Everyone else has also done it, and B) It’s only relevant for an exceptionally short period of time.

Just for example, if we were to produce a podcast on the top 10 graphics cards you could buy right now, it would have to hit the algorithm practically immediately, and even then, after 2-3 months it would clearly be both outdated and inaccurate information.

Following a report via Axios, however, it seems that following the pandemic boom of home-grown podcasters (typically people with a lot of spare time on their hands), the trend for people putting out their own audio content has officially come to an end!

The Podcasting Boom is (Apparently) Over!

According to the data, it seems pretty clear that following the 2021 COVID-19 pandemic, many people looked towards the creation of a podcast as a means of giving them something to do. With this now (hopefully) very firmly behind us, however, it seems that practically no one decided to keep this up. Some of the more interesting nuggets of information include:

• New podcasting content dropped by 80% over the last year
• The vast majority of users dropped out of doing it within 1-2 ‘episodes’
• Listener growth has dropped into single digits following many successive years of double-digit numbers
• Due to the apparent drop in growth, money-making opportunities via sponsorships or endorsements have shrunk considerably by, according to some sources, as much as 70%

The news isn’t all bad though as the overall ethos does seem to suggest that many of the podcasts created either before or during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is still ongoing, has both matured and, in many instances, have now achieved a strong and loyal fanbase. And in this regard, I’ll freely concede that I regularly listen to the Jim Cornette podcast predominantly for all his usually blunt views on the wrestling business.

What do you think though? Do you think podcasting is on the decline or do you think its simple seen the boom period of ‘wannabe’ content creators move on/give up? – Let us know in the comments!