Podcasts Come Back from the Dead

Podcasts, the online radio shows once thought to be in a scrap heap, are back in a big way.

With addictive series such as “Serial,” presidential interviews on the WTF Podcast with Marc Maron, and more, the medium is the healthiest it has been in quite some time. Terrestrial radio hosts, or even satellite ones such as Howard Stern, may think podcasting isn’t a viable entity. For many, however, the golden age of podcasting is here and now.

Podcasting was born out of the introduction of the iPod in 2001. When Steve Jobs and Apple introduced the device, the intention was for users to be able to carry entire catalogs of music in their pocket. Soon enough, podcasts were spawned, covering a host of topics, including politics, sports and news. While the medium grew, the quality of podcasts were very much in question from both an audio and content perspective.

As the 2000s rolled into the 2010s, the medium faded, overtaken by streaming music services and video content. But podcasts have come roaring back, riding on the back of fresh new content and long-time hosts dedicated to the craft.

“Serial,” the podcast series that debuted in 2014, drew praise and awards online and became the talk of water coolers around the country. Focusing on the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee in Baltimore, Maryland, the series investigated every aspect of the crime and the trial, reaching more than 76 million downloads. The defendant in the case, Adnan Masud Syed, was allowed to appeal his conviction in a decision handed down three weeks after the final episode of the first season was made available.

Season two of “Serial” focused on Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, an American soldier released by the Taliban and then charged with desertion. The success of “Serial” was the first example of quasi-Netflix experience in the podcasting world, with many listeners binging on the product like a Netflix show or documentary series, the most recent example being Netflix’s “Making a Murderer.” The immediate success and pop culture appeal of “Serial” is more an aberration, as podcasts tend to build an audience over time.

Marc Maron’s WTF podcast played host to President Obama in June 2015, nearly six years after it debuted. With more than 600 episodes downloaded over 100 million times, the podcast has played host to a large number of guests and increased in popularity over time.

This is similar to Danny Pena’s Gamertag Radio podcast, which launched in 2005. Pena’s podcast enjoyed its largest number of downloads in 2015 and joined CBS’s recently launched Play.it podcast network. Along with interviewing some of the largest personalities in the video game industry, Pena has been inducted into the Podcasters Hall of Fame and is forthright about working with other podcasters as a mentor and building communities around shows, seeing it as the backbone of success in the field and important to sustaining the podcasting industry.

“As a community, if we really want this to grow, everyone needs to contribute. You can worry about the competition later on,” Pena told LifeZette. “What we need to do is make a huge impact on the industry. Create good content that interests new listeners and helps maintain old ones. Give advice to others who would like to learn about podcasting. Radio needs podcasting because nowadays, listeners can’t listen to live radio all the time or choose not to.

“Chances are they can easily listen to a podcast any time they want,” Pena added. “It’s an on-demand type of style. Whether the podcast is indie or mainstream doesn’t matter to me as long as the podcast gives me great content. We need to continue to do our part to make podcasting successful.”

The appeal of podcasts in many ways is indicative of the attitude of the time and the technology that comes along with it. In an on-demand society, many can’t be bothered to tune into a radio station at a certain time to listen to their favorite show. Television has the DVR. Movies come on-demand. Even Howard Stern, who said podcasts were “for losers,” sees his channel on Sirius play his greatest hits all day long.

While a bygone era would see people gather around a radio to listen to an event or gravitate around the water cooler to discuss what happened yesterday, modern technology allows us to listen any time we want. Podcasts’ barrier for entry is small as opposed to that of traditional radio, where a gatekeeper determines who gets on the air. Evolving technology allows a podcast to be recorded and edited on an iPhone, and uploading to an RSS feed for iTunes and other places is just a click away.

Pena, however, warns against an impatience to capture real success. “Everything takes time. Nowadays people want results fasts. I compare it to building a relationship. If you start fast, it’ll end fast. Gamertag Radio has been very successful for years. But 2015, our 10th anniversary, was our best year ever. I owe it to my team, who consistently work hard and never give up. I also owe it to our listeners. None of our success is possible without them.”

As the podcasting medium expands and evolves, numerous large media companies are jumping on board, with network funding and ad revenue rising. Personalities such as comedian and UFC commentator Joe Rogan, director Kevin Smith and professional wrestler “Stone Cold” Steve Austin are among the notable personalities who have found great success connecting with their fan base in the podcasting field.

Whether it’s by celebrities, long time podcasters or investigative reporters, society has latched on to the new wave of podcasting. With technology and tastes in the right position to feed the boom, don’t expect podcasting to take a backseat to any other entertainment medium any time soon.