The coronavirus has brought huge challenges to the global news and publishing industry, and more news organisations are now focusing on exploring the survival mechanism of digital news.
Australian news podcasts have been effective in driving digital subscriptions and increasing user loyalty, enabling news organisations to build stronger and deeper connections with local readers. According to Deloitte’s statistics, the podcasting business could grow to more than $3.3 billion by 2025, about three times its current size. This year, the proportion of people who used a podcast in the last month in Australia increased from 31 per cent to 33 per cent compared to 2021.
The Reuters Institute expects that about 80 per cent effort this year will go into podcasts and other digital audio.
News Podcast listeners are getting younger. In Australia, 16 per cent of podcast listeners are under the age of 30, and the majority of weekly radio listeners are those over 50. Younger listeners feel that listening to podcasts tends to be a more personal experience than listening to radio shows. Among them, Australian local topics have the widest audience, accounting for 36 per cent, which is 27 per cent higher than the subscription of international topics. News podcasts account for only seven per cent of the existing 770000 podcasts, but news content is far more sticky and engaging than other types of podcasts.
The continuation of the Covid-19 has greatly contributed to the growth of podcast programs and listeners. Since 90 per cent of podcast listening is through headphones or a cell phone, it also provides a more intimate emotional connection between listeners and hosts. The connection podcasters built with their listeners set the stage for paid podcasting. In the 2022 survey, 41 per cent Norwegians were the most willing to pay for digital news, followed by 33 per cent of Sweden, 19 per cent of Finland and the US, and 18 per cent of Australian.
How much media content will subscribers subscribe to? Across the entire scope of the survey, most subscribers chose only one medium. But in the US and Australia, more than half of readers will choose two or more.
In the eyes of doubters, Australia’s news podcasts have limited monetisation capabilities. It is difficult to quickly accumulate users, and the industry is highly competitive. But according to some media analysts and survey agencies, the golden age of Australian podcasting is just beginning. The coronavirus is likely to bring accelerated, long-term structural changes to the increasingly saturated media industry, which may lead to the next wave of disruption and reshaping.
