Podcast is growing and it’s young people who are driving this growth. Elizabeth Lane and Pete Zezulka, BBC, UK told the audience all they know about podcasts.
People listen to podcasts in the evening. Only 22% of people listen to all of the the podcasts that they download and 1 third of people listen to the end of a podcast. You need to make your podcast something people choose. You need to grab peoples attention at the start of a podcast.
There are two emerging groups of podcast listeners who use podcasts as catch up and a smaller group who seek out new things to listen to via podcast and may not have a radio habit. The two audiences are both interesting for different reasons, the second audience are future proofing an audio habit.
There are five areas which help the BBC do what they do, for example spontaneity - ‘The Infinite Monkey Cage’, personal - ‘Flintoff, Savage and the ping pong guy’ a podcast of behind the scenes and very raw stories about sport. Podcasting is the community of the creators, ‘podcasters are viewed as a community of creators’ and podcast needs to be effortless stimulation, it needs to be fun and informative like ‘The Untold’.
The BBC is working on podcasts and targeting groups who will ensure the future of radio is secure.