The Ups and Downs of Audio in 2024

Every year, we take the audio sector and review the ups and downs. In 2024, no one would call the audio sector stable, quiet, and status quo. Innovation kept us on our toes, challenges tested the industry's grit, and evolution was the name of the game. It’s been a wild ride with twists, turns, and surprises that prove just how adaptable the world of audio can be. Let’s crank up the volume and explore what 2024 had to offer.

It was the podcast election.

Podcasting had a giant cultural moment this year. The 2024 political cycle was dubbed by many as "The Podcast Election," a nod to podcasts' pivotal role in shaping political discourse. Campaigns, strategists, and pundits increasingly turned to podcasts to deliver their messages. At the expense of mainstream media, candidates opted for appearances on podcasts like Call Her Daddy and The Joe Rogan Experience.

The reach of shows like Call Her Daddy is bigger and has a more targeted audience than many TV shows and aging cable networks. The candidates could also talk longer and more intimately than they might with most mainstream media. A big win for podcasts.

We’re now in the era of “What’s a podcast?”

In my Business of Podcasting course at NYU I talk about the three eras of podcasting. The first was the “MeUndies” era, dominated by public radio podcasts and low-tech baked-in ads primarily for direct-to-consumer (DTC) companies. Ten years ago, the entire podcast ad market was worth $300,000. The second era was “Spaghetti against the wall.” It was about big business coming in, throwing money around, and looking to buy shows and audience share. Spotify, Amazon, SiriusXM, Sony, and many more jumped in. There was a lot of spillage and many errors, but audiences grew. 

Today, we are firmly in the third era of the business, “What’s a podcast?” As podcasts rapidly evolve beyond traditional audio formats, video podcasts gained substantial traction in 2024. This shift repositions podcasts for Generation Z and audiences actively engaging with video shows rather than simply passively listening. 

Will video work for most podcasters?  What will happen to the audio-only RSS feed?  Who knows. But other media has gone through a bubble phase. The blog mania of 2007 is a great example. Everyone had to have a blog, but most failed in the end. 

YouTube is eating podcasting.

Four years ago, it was an Apple Podcasts world. Today, YouTube has become the leading platform for podcast consumption. The ascension of YouTube into the podcast eco-system has been exceptionally fast. Even the doubters are paying attention now. Top executives of YouTube have reportedly said, “We weren’t even trying!” Google officially shut down Google Podcasts (RIP) in April, recommending listeners use YouTube Music to consume podcasts.

As my NYU students report, YouTube is where they search for content of all types. They discover what they like on TikTok and Instagram and then play it on YouTube.

Many podcasters are trying to figure out how and if video works for them. For some, it’s going great. For others, there is a lot of hand-wringing. 

Spotify wants to be like YouTube.

In response to YouTube's dominance, Spotify has intensified efforts to capture the video podcast market, making significant announcements for video creators in November. The company plans to compensate hosts for popular videos that reach specific viewership milestones and will offer ad-free access to video podcasts for premium subscribers in select countries starting in January 2025. Another signal of the platform’s push is they recently ditched the “Spotify for Podcasters” branding, opting for a new, broader one: “Spotify for Creators.”

While Spotify has had ups and downs, it has also been a major disrupter in audio. Will video work? We’ll have to see how they fare against video colossus YouTube. Do people want to consume videos on Spotify? Will they forsake YouTube? Will they give control of their content to Spotify? As analyst Chris Peterson and the always sharp eyes of Podnews editor James Cridland pointed out, Bill Simmons, who has the Ringer Network of shows and heads Podcast Innovation and Monetization at Spotify, has only put their video content on YouTube.

This suggests the video road ahead for Spotify could be bumpy.  I’ll have more on this through the eyes of Spotify and YouTube users. 

Radio companies were on the edge.

In 2024, major broadcasting companies, including iHeartMedia, Cumulus Media, Beasley Media Group, Salem Media Group, and Urban One, experienced declining stock valuations, soft sales, and a decreasing audience. To mitigate financial pressures and avoid potential bankruptcy, these companies implemented cost-cutting measures, including substantial layoffs.

iHeartMedia, for instance, announced plans to reduce expenses by $150 million through organizational restructuring and eliminating redundancies. CEO Bob Pittman addressed these changes in November, stating, "There's not a slot for everybody." 

During a bankruptcy reorganization, financial investors George and Alex Soros swooped in to buy a controlling chunk of Audacy, the second-largest broadcast company. Maybe that will be prescient if the new Trump administration loosens ownership rules. It is expected that Audacy will purchase other radio companies. If this happens, time will tell if it sparks positive growth in a declining sector. 

But… radio held listenership among ad-supported media.

Nielsen reports that Americans spend 20% of their daily media time with audio. That’s just under four hours each day. Slicing it by time spent with ad-supported media, 67% of that time is with radio. Zooming in on 18-34, it’s just over half (51%) with radio and roughly one-third with podcasts (31%).  

Public radio funding and audience eroded.

Public radio has not been immune to the financial pressures facing the radio industry. Alongside drops in listener donations and corporate sponsorships, public radio stations are grappling with shrinking and aging audiences. Studies show that the median age of NPR listeners has continued to rise, now in the mid-to-late 50s, reflecting a broader trend of aging audiences in traditional media (more on this in a moment).

In response, NPR and affiliates sought to diversify their revenue streams in 2024, experimenting with subscription-based content, exclusive podcast series, and grant-funded journalism. While these initiatives show promise, they also underscore the urgency of addressing the challenges posed by a mature and diminishing core audience. In February, our friend Eric Nuzum laid out a manifesto of sorts to Katherine Maher, the new CEO of NPR. It’s worth a read.

Big change often requires significant investment, adding to the financial strain on organizations grappling with tight budgets and pressure to deliver immediate results.

SiriusXM pivoted, again.

These days, you hear much more about SiriusXM on the podcast front than satellite radio. SiriusXM’s aging legacy business lost 445,000 subscribers last year and is on track to drop slightly fewer his year. There are questions about whether Howard Stern, their top star, will continue. That’s an unknown at this time. What is clear is that the stable of SiriusXM podcasts grew in 2024 with the addition of Alex Cooper (a reportedly $100-$125M deal), SmartLess Media ($100M deal), and others.

In February, Variety reported that SiriusXM would lay off 160 employees. More cuts are likely as the business evolves. The future of SiriusXM is liberating its audio from the car with an app refresh and the hope of a premium podcast subscription. It’s early days, but we know that app adoption in a YouTube and Spotify world is mighty hard. 

Are subscriptions the future of podcasts?

The New York Times is doing it. NPR, Pushkin, Wondery, and many more hope to grow revenue with credit cards. In October, Ira Glass of This American Life lamented a one-third drop in revenue and announced the launch of a new subscription option “out of necessity.” Was it audience decline, soft revenue, or the disruption from Apple Podcasts’ 2023 iOS change to its automatic download feature that created these conditions? In July, This American Life announced the end of its strategic alliance with the New York Times and that National Public Media would represent the podcast’s sales. Patreon reports $350 million in revenue to podcasters in 2023.

Today, TV streamers are churning subscription audiences at record levels, and seemingly every writer has a Substack subscription paywall. Will podcasts be a subscription standout? Many hope so.

Audiobooks became more widely available.

Audiobooks just might be the next competitive space in audio. Historically, Amazon’s Audible controlled much of this growing marketplace. Spotify made waves in November 2023 with the news that it had made 200K+ audiobooks available in the U.S. as part of Spotify Premium subscriptions. Just a few weeks ago, Amazon announced it would include its entire Audible catalog in Amazon Music, allowing Unlimited subscribers to listen to one title for free every month.

Mainstream media is melting.

The media business is being battered on all sides. Legacy media is in a slide marked by layoffs, declining advertising revenue, and labor unrest. Outlets in TV, newspapers, and magazines are being squeezed by competition from digital platforms. Billionaire-backed rescue efforts at The Washington Post, Sports Illustrated, and Forbes have failed to reverse the trend. Cable news is in flux. Comcast is moving its NBCUniversal cable networks to a separate, publicly traded company called “SpinCo” (yes, that is the name). Axios reports this is so NBCUniversal can focus on opportunities with higher growth potential, like streaming and theme parks.

In January, CNN CEO Mark Thompson wrote a memo to his staff that said: “The traditional TV universe is shrinking steadily. The shift from linear broadcast to digital means that the audience for all news channels on US cable has fallen by roughly a fifth in just the past two years.”

Post-election, CNN ratings are in the tank. 

The reality is mainstream media audiences are getting older. Check out the chart below. Take one look at podcasting and you can see why candidates gravitated away from traditional media toward podcasting to connect with those hard-to-reach Gen Z and Millennials.

TikTok and Instagram were tapped more for podcast discovery.

Speaking of reaching younger audiences, podcasters are embracing short-form video more than ever as a marketing tool. This year, more creators shared clips on TikTok and Instagram to promote their podcasts to the increasing number of people who use those platforms.

Google’s NotebookLM stood out as an innovation in synthetic content.

In September, Google blew us away by introducing its “Audio Overviews” feature of NotebookLM, the company’s advanced AI tool designed to transform existing content. Audio Overviews creates engaging conversational audio in a podcast format. We tried it. It is eerie and jaw-dropping. By uploading blogs, books, and articles, NotebookLM generates dialogue-driven podcasts with two natural-sounding voices in just minutes. In October, Google announced that users can now provide instructions on what the Audio Overviews hosts focus on and their level of expertise.

Some podcasters have called this junk audio. We’ve been in the audience development game for a long time and always want the audience to decide what is valuable or junk. According to this dataset from Listen Notes, roughly 3,000 AI-generated “fake” podcasts have been created so far. It's not exactly a tsunami. It's one to watch.

The use of AI voices and podcast production grew.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been increasingly integrated into podcast production. Companies like ElevenLabs have developed AI voice cloning technology (and its version of Audio Overviews), enabling content creators to generate synthetic voices for narration and character voices. This innovation has been utilized in various sectors, including audiobooks, gaming, and personalized content creation. Companies like Descript have added AI options to their platform. AdsWizz announced synthetic voices would be available in AudioGO in February.

We have seen a few pure AI-generated podcasts, and early anecdotal evidence is not favorable. The importance of preserving the human element to build trust and emotional connections with audiences is on the table.

Some significant moves shaped the audio landscape.  

Other notable changes in 2024 include Rogers Sports & Media shuttering the branded podcast company Pacific Content (and selling the name). On December 12th, Spotify officially sunsets Chartable, one of the first great podcast marketing measurement tools.

Audacy, Inc. reorganized its podcast division under the new branding of Audacy Podcasts, retiring the Cadence13 brand. Triton Digital acquired Sounder, an audio intelligence platform, to provide advanced sales and promotion tools.

Podcasting veteran Brendan Monaghan was named Libsyn’s new CEO and a member of the Board of Directors. Brendan will lead Libsyn’s next chapter of expansion and innovation. He is well positioned to do it, having co-founded and served as Megaphone’s CEO.

Oxford Road and Veritone One announced that the two leading agencies would unite to form the “world’s largest podcast agency.” The two businesses will be independent in the near term, but there are plans to unify the brands. Dan Granger is the CEO of the newly combined organization.

On a personal note

I completed the second year of my “The Business of Podcasting” course at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. It is the only course that focuses on the rapidly changing ecosystem of podcasting. To help, we had a truly remarkable line-up of guest speakers including Tom Webster (Sounds Profitable), Eric Nuzum (Magnificent Noise), Megan Lazovick (Edison Research), Sharon Taylor (Triton Digital), Sean Oh(Audible), Andy Lipset (Resound), Jenna Weiss-Berman (Audacy), Chris Bannon (Condé Nast), and Michael Keohane (formerly iHeartMedia), and the one and only Arielle Nissenblatt. I’m grateful for their contributions and proud of the great group of students and their keen observational eyes and ears as they learn about our industry. 

As 2024 fades out, the audio industry is very much alive. From game-changing tech to seismic shifts in how and where people listen (and watch), this year has been a masterclass in resilience and reinvention. The challenges are real, but so are the opportunities. If this year has taught us anything, it’s that audio is far from done evolving. So, here’s to the innovators, the risk-takers, and the storytellers pushing boundaries. Bring on 2025—let’s see what’s next for the world of sound.

We’ll be here to explore it all with you. In the meantime, Happy Holidays.