In coordination with The Hollywood Reporter‘s list of the most important people in podcasting, the industry’s leaders were asked to identify the sector’s biggest challenges, as the no-longer-so-new medium enters its third decade. And while podcasting seems to have bounced back from last year’s slowdown, there are still plenty of forces holding it back, including questions around discoverability, the advertising model and the incorporation of video elements.
What are the biggest challenges facing podcasts right now?
Rachel Maddow, Ultra
None of the apps are great. We don’t just need curation and charts, we need rational organization, and a meritocratic way for the best and most relevant shows and episodes to circulate efficiently. It’s hard for me to understand why we’re still saddled with such uniformly clunky, unintuitive user interfaces at this point.
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Ben Shapiro, The Ben Shapiro Show
The biggest challenge is marketing, particularly in the news sphere, where government pressure has resulted in social media platforms cutting off traffic for news shows in particular.
Bill Simmons, The Ringer, The Bill Simmons Podcast
There’s far too many [podcasts], which means far too many of them don’t do as well as how they’re being sold to advertisers, which means advertisers eventually get less excited about spending money on podcasts.
DJ EFN, N.O.R.E., Drink Champs
Quality control.
Emily Rakesh, Sony Music Entertainment
Advertising continues to be a challenge. The disconnect between time spent listening to podcasts vs. ad spend in the medium shows that podcasts still need to prove themselves to buyers…. and/or we need to make the process of buying easier.
Oren Rosenbaum, UTA
Effective marketing and international monetization.
Vanessa Grigoriadis, Campside Media
Money.
Caroline Edwards, CAA
Discoverability.
Josh Lindgren, CAA
A lack of courage. There is still so much innovation happening in this medium that’s being ignored by the gatekeepers. For podcasting to keep evolving we need to identify and support the artists who are taking risks and pushing the form forward.
Ray Chao, Vox Media
The biggest challenge (and opportunity!) is navigating the transformation of an industry borne out of radio as it grows and converges with video, social media platforms, and the creator economy.
Nishat Kurwa, Vox Media
The same one facing much of digital media: competition for audience attention in a landscape overflowing with great offerings. That said, few other forms of media are as habit-forming; “I gotta catch up on my shows” is a still a pretty common sentiment among podcast fans, despite all the choices at their fingertips. So then the challenge for individual podcasts becomes more about how to maintain value and continue to evolve in order to keep those loyal audiences.
Tiffany Ashitey, Acast
The never-ending debate of video and how to best integrate it into a historically audio-first industry.
Ross Adams, Acast
Some might say it’s having a slight identity crisis with video within podcasting continuing to expand. I say, embrace it! It’s good for all of us. Creators can expand their reach and find new audiences, and advertisers can too. We’ve seen a massive rise in our teams working with our advertisers on multichannel campaigns that include platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.
Charlamagne tha God, The Black Effect Network
Oversaturation.
Theo Von
Everyone has a podcast — even animals.
Steve Ackerman, Sony Music Entertainment
Discoverability is still an important issue. In a world where it is increasingly difficult to launch new shows and develop exciting creative to capture new audiences, discoverability is essential to the success of a show and it is still way short of where it is for music and TV streaming. I’m looking at you, platforms!
Read THR‘s The Most Powerful People in Podcasting in 2024 list.
This story first appeared in the August 7 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
