Joe Rogan
Spotify has been expanding its podcasts catalogue as they continue to see strong growth in the industry. According to the most recent financial reports, Spotify reported that 21% of monthly users have listened to at least one podcast in the past month. Spotify saw a 5% increase in podcast engagement between Q4 of 2019 and Q2 of 2020.
“Since mid-March, we’ve seen a decrease in time spent listening to podcasts,” said Peter Vahle, forecasting analyst at Insider Intelligence said in this eMarketer article. He continued, “However, we expect listening habits will return to normal in the second half of the year, so that by the end of 2020, we’ll see the strong growth in podcast listeners we were anticipating.”
The highest-earning podcast of 2019 was The Joe Rogan Experience. In early September, Joe Rogan began his $100 million podcasting contract with Spotify, which will see his entire catalogue migrate to the platform.
Amazon Music announced recently it’s adding podcasts to its platform putting them in direct competition with Spotify. Amazon Music didn’t specify how large its total podcast catalog was at launch, but it’s rumored to be 70,000.
Podcasts have gained even more momentum with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Many people who have been sheltered at home are seeking alternative forms of entertainment.
Quarantining aside, podcasting has become a highly lucrative industry in the past few years. And they are getting to the ears of a younger crowd. According to data from Stock Apps, in 2020 75% of Americans over the age of 12 were aware of podcasts, which is a 30% uptick from a decade ago. Digital marketing website eMarketer stated that podcast ad revenue is forecasted to climb 14.7%, despite the pandemic, bringing total ad revenue close to $1 billion.
