2 days ago
How podcasters are taking over TV
When Gary Lineker's The Rest is Football unveiled a deal to broadcast Fifa Club World Cup highlights, it marked a watershed moment for podcasting.
'The Rest Is Football isn't just being listened to – it's being watched, shared, and talked about across Spotify, YouTube, TikTok, X and Instagram', said Tony Pastor, who co-founded the podcast production company Goalhanger alongside Lineker.
In buying up licensed match footage, one of the most successful franchises in podcasting was acknowledging what many in the industry had long observed: podcasts are no longer merely an audio format, but are increasingly becoming the new TV.
Popular shows including The Rest is Politics and The Rest is History are now accompanied by videos of their hosts chatting in the studio. Shows are broadcast not just on traditional audio platforms like Apple's podcast app, but on video-based services such as Instagram and TikTok.
In a sign of just how significant this shift has been, YouTube is today the largest global podcast platform with over 1bn monthly views. Spotify, which has invested heavily in podcasts but has an audience just a tenth of YouTube's size, is now playing catch-up by showing videos of podcasts automatically when people listen.
Traditional broadcasters are scrambling to keep up. In May, Channel 4 struck a deal to bring video programming to Spotify, building on an existing partnership with YouTube.
Tim Davie, director general at the BBC, recently announced plans to make special news programming for YouTube and TikTok, while in a sign of the blurring lines between video and audio, the broadcaster has started to put podcasts such as Rylan's How To Be In Love on iPlayer, as well as on Sounds.
In its regular programming, too, the influence of podcasting is clear to see. The latest series of the hit reality show, The Traitors, was accompanied by a 'companion series' dubbed Uncloaked, in which comedian and podcaster Ed Gamble interviewed contestants in a studio equipped with leather armchairs and microphones – set decoration that mimicked video podcasts. Episodes were also put out as podcasts – blurring the lines between formats.
The growing importance of podcasting was also a key factor behind big pay raises handed to BBC journalists such as Nick Robinson and Laura Kuenssberg, who are now regularly presenting them alongside TV and radio duties.
In the US, meanwhile, Fox News has made similar moves by inking a licensing deal with Ruthless, a hit podcast hosted by Republican figures.
Evolution from on-demand radio
Podcasting is hardly a new player on the block. The format traces its origins back to the early Noughties with the emergence of the RSS feed, which allowed internet users to download an audio file to listen on the go. For most of its early life, podcasting essentially served as on-demand radio.
Over the years, however, it has developed into a major media format in its own right. Just over a fifth of UK adults listen to a podcast each week, according to Ofcom, up from 4pc in 2008.
More recently, podcasting has undergone perhaps its biggest transformation to date – video. Put simply, people are increasingly watching podcasts as well as listening to them.
Matt Deegan, a radio and podcast expert, says: 'If you're an audio podcaster and have done quite well out of that for a long time, you're in a bit of a quandary now because you've got to boot up the video side to reach that audience.'
The reason for this explosion in video is partly a practical one: advancements in technology have made it much cheaper for creators to film their shows and far easier for audiences to view them. Many podcasts are also essentially talk shows, meaning viewers are familiar with the format.
'It's easier than it has ever been to film something along with recording it', says Scott Bryan, a TV critic and broadcaster. 'If you know what you're doing, you can have a setup with a video camera that's got great audio quality.'
Whether or not there is a burning consumer demand to watch podcasters pontificate in a studio is difficult to determine.
A recent survey conducted by Edison for Ofcom found that 40pc of people who listen to a podcast with video prefer to consume it in an audio-only format.
This may reflect when people engage with podcasts. Unlike TV, which people watch when they get home from work, many may turn on a podcast while sitting on the train to work.
However, podcasters want to make sure they can reach the widest possible audience, wherever – and however – they are consuming shows.
Larger audiences naturally bring the promise of greater advertising revenues, too, as podcasters monetise their shows on multiple platforms. What's more, video provides more opportunities for sponsorship and product placement, such as Dragon's Den star Steven Bartlett, clutching a bottle of Huel in his Diary of a CEO podcast.
'As a creator, you're making a show, and your show is there to be distributed in lots of places, and it should work in all of those media,' says Deegan. 'Its evolution isn't about all audio podcasts becoming video, it's more that people are creating shows that you can get on lots of different platforms.'
The consequence is that most consumers – particularly younger ones – no longer distinguish between audio and video. A podcast is therefore now defined by its style and content, rather than its format.
Media battle
The bleeding of podcasts into TV poses yet another threat to traditional broadcasters and publishers as they battle to retain attention in an increasingly crowded media market.
This was perhaps best exemplified by Piers Morgan's decision last year to leave Rupert Murdoch's TalkTV and instead pursue his own show on YouTube. Tellingly, YouTube viewers watched more than 400m hours of podcasts on TV sets last year.
Traditional media outlets face significant hurdles in harnessing the power of podcasting in all its forms. Perhaps the biggest risk is a race to the bottom, in which broadcasters shun big-budget hits in favour of cheap podcast-style programming that low-budget rivals can easily compete with. This threat is particularly acute as broadcasters and producers warn of a funding crisis for high-end British dramas.
Regardless of how they respond, there is a sense that traditional media outlets are reluctantly starting to accept that viewing habits have fundamentally changed. If they want to stay relevant, broadcasters can no longer ignore the rise of the podcast as TV.
'After years of maybe being quite dismissive and letting it do its thing, I think traditional broadcasters are realising that now you have to invest, and if that means doing a similar setup to what YouTubers and podcasters are doing, then so be it,' says Bryan.
