There are a lot of people, myself included, who think Kamala Harris may have lost the election by not going on the Joe Rogan Experience. He has a huge audience of young males – a weak demographic for her – yet one that is split roughly evenly between Republican, Democrat, and independent (according to Edison Research). Trump appeared, as did JD Vance and RFK Jr., but not the VP or Gov. Walz. She did plenty of other podcasts, but somehow chose to avoid JRE.
TV? No, Gen Z is watching podcasts. Credit: Bing Image Creator
As Tatiana
Siegal and Todd Spangler wrote
in Variety: “it is clear that Harris relied on an outdated playbook
— one that opted for Howard
Stern, who pioneered bro radio in the ’90s but whose influence is now
negligible — and failed to see the significance of Rogan.”
The above
notwithstanding, I promise this is not going to be about politics. It’s not
even going to be about listening to podcasts. Rather, it’s about a trend with
podcasts that took me by surprise: we’re more likely to watch podcasts than
listen to them, and when we do, we’re most likely to do so on YouTube -- not
the usual podcast kings, Apple and Spotify,
Ben Cohen reported
on this trend in The Wall Street Journal a few days ago, based on research
Edison Research published
last month. Edison found that 31% of weekly podcast listeners chose YouTube,
whereas 27% for Spotify and 15% for Apple Podcasts. Edison said: “A few years
ago, YouTube might have seemed like an unlikely platform for podcasts. But as
the world of podcasting evolves, many podcasters have embraced video
podcasting, recording their shows in both audio and video formats.”
…84% of Gen Z monthly podcast listeners ever listen to or watch podcasts with a video component. For this younger audience, the ability to watch their favorite podcasters, not just listen, adds a layer of engagement that traditional audio platforms lack. Forty-nine percent of Gen Z monthly podcast listeners say video provides a better understanding of context/tone through facial expressions and gestures, while 45% feel more connected to the podcaster(s) through video podcasts. The preferences of the Gen Z demographic are redefining the podcasting landscape, and YouTube is uniquely positioned to cater to their habits.
Mr. Cohen
notes: “The most improbable thing about how YouTube made the podcast market all
about video is how swiftly it happened. Only four years ago, when it was
less popular for podcasts than both Spotify and Apple, YouTube becoming a
podcasting colossus sounded about as realistic as Martin Scorsese releasing his
next movie on TikTok.”
“We saw
this trend organically emerging,” Tim Katz, YouTube’s vice president of
partnerships, told him, “and then we wanted to invest in it.” And, boy, it
sure is paying off.
It’s
interesting to note that when Joe Rogan signed
a new, $250 million deal with Spotify, it was no longer exclusive – and he has
some 18.5 million subscribers on YouTube already.
Spotify is
not sitting idly. Last week it upped its video game too, announcing
“a series of new offerings aimed at helping creators significantly grow their
audiences and better monetize their video podcasts on Spotify.”
Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek promised creators:
By delivering a best-in-class video offering uninterrupted by ad breaks, combined with Spotify’s flexibility and ubiquity, we can provide an experience for your audience that is superior to any platform. And by giving you, the creators, another path to monetization beyond ads, we’re freeing you up to spend more time doing what you love: creating.
Listeners “can
expect an array of great video features, including chapters, comments,
pinch-to-zoom, thumbnail scrubbing, and new ways to find and go deep on podcast,”
but, more importantly, starting in January they can view videos uninterrupted by
ads.
All told, Spotify
thinks the changes are “the biggest update to podcasts on Spotify ever.”
The announcement
admits: “We’ve seen shifts in podcast trends across the industry globally, and
one of them is that video consumption hours have expanded rapidly—more than 250
million users have watched a video podcast on Spotify, and nearly two-thirds of
podcast listeners say they prefer podcasts with video.”
As Mr. Elk
told
Anne Steele of WSJ: “It’s becoming all about video. It’s kind of an
irony,” He went on to add: ““If you said five years ago that people would want
to watch people talking and sitting in front of a microphone, I’d say probably
not.”
All of this is beginning to change the entire medium in a fundamental way. For a decade, podcasts were something you listened to while you were doing something else: driving, working out, unloading the dishwasher. That was a passive experience. Now an entire generation has been conditioned to think of podcasts as something they can actively watch any time on any kind of screen—a phone, a computer, a TV.
Which might sound nuts to you. But to young people, it just sounds normal.
Video
podcasts are the new normal.
--------------
I don’t really
listen to podcasts, but, if I did, I’d be more inclined to watch than just
listen. I waste plenty of time as it is on YouTube and if I wanted to spend
some of that time on podcasts, I’d probably use YouTube for them as well.
But I feel
about podcasts and especially video podcasts much the way I started to worry
about TikTok a few years ago: I don’t really get it, but I have to acknowledge that
young people do. Baby Boomers like me and Ms. Harris, and maybe many Gen X, are
operating with “an outdated playbook” when it comes to how younger people want
to get their information.
I hate to
admit it, but Joe Rogan knows something that many traditional media, marketers,
advertisers, and executives don’t, and they better learn those lessons quickly.
Podcasts should be a great way to get good information: lengthy discussions
with experts. But those experts often have “expertise” that is dubious, and can
become major sources of misinformation/disinformation.
Those of
us who care about that better get a new playbook, soon, and that playbook
better include podcasts – preferably video ones.
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