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Powering Commhoist & Redtrail

The podcast boom and the importance of being connected

Insights
19th March 2020

Over the last two years, podcasts have seen a huge rise in popularity with more and more choice now being …

The podcast boom and the importance of being connected

Over the last two years, podcasts have seen a huge rise in popularity with more and more choice now being offered to listeners.

According to Ofcom, around 7.1 million people in the UK now listen to podcasts each week. That’s one in eight people – and an increase of 24% in the last year. In today’s blog, we talk about the ever-growing popularity of podcasts, and why improving 4G and 5G access is providing listeners with the opportunity to browse, download or stream whenever they want.

Ofcom’s Director of Market Intelligence, Ian Macrae said: “Podcasts are transforming the ways people listen to audio content – just as on-demand video is changing how people watch television. It’s fantastic to see how UK radio broadcasters as well as newspapers and other media companies are embracing podcasting and offering more choice about what we listen to than we’ve ever had before.”

Podcasts, for a lot of people, help fill the space; whether that be whilst on a train commuting, or when you’re out for a walk or run. As a generation, we always like to be connected and podcasts allow us to connect with our interests whenever and wherever we want.

It’s said that, on average, a regular podcast user listens to around seven podcasts each week, with 22% of people who own a smart speaker using them to listen to podcasts. Brands are now tapping into the opportunities that podcasts can provide, from building their brand and positioning them as industry experts to monetising their podcast with adverts relevant to the brands audience. Once a listener subscribes to a podcast, they are a captive audience for a company, its content and discussion topics.

The popularity of podcasts has seen the choice skyrocket in the last two years, there are currently over 900,000 podcasts to choose from. This offers consumers a wealth of choice in a whole range of topics from entertainment, to politics and science and technology. Entertainment is currently the most popular podcast genre with over 57% of podcast listeners choosing to listen to an entertainment podcast in their spare time.

As the podcast market grows, it’s important to note the strain on connections, especially when streaming or downloading an episode. If you’re not connected to a Wi-Fi connection, the speed of your connection will determine the listening experience. You don’t want to experience buffering if streaming an episode, and you equally don’t want to wait until you can connect to Wi-Fi to download an episode you’ve been looking forward to listening to.

As podcasts and other data demanding services increase, such as video streaming and live content we as an industry need to continue to provide improvements to connection and downloads speeds for all areas across the UK, from city centre locations to rural parts of the country.

At Commhoist we provide nationwide right first-time telecoms logistics to help improve the mobile network within the UK. Find out more about Commhoist or contact the team today on 01942 269 335.