In 2021 so far, we have seen a year of important developments within the global podcasting industry.
Between the long-awaited launch of Apple’s subscriptions service in June, Spotify’s new paid subscription platform for podcasters and a flurry of mergers and acquisitions, including the news that Amazon closed its acquisition of podcast network Wondery in February, Sony purchased Somethin’ Else in June and SiriusXM acquired Invisible Inc. (the producers behind the 99% Invisible podcast), it is clear that the competition between podcast platforms is intensifying. Even regionally, we are seeing increasing investment from Deezer and Anghami in the podcasting space and growth from local Arabic platforms such as Podeo and PodU.
In the MENA region, both demand and supply of podcasts have grown immensely over the last couple of years. Listeners today have so much more choice when it comes to Arabic podcasts than they did this time last year, which has helped the industry to flourish. We are not only seeing new podcast networks being established, but also more investment into the sector and a whole host of independent producers creating a long tail of podcasts that cater to many more niche genres which were simply not previously available.
One of the reasons for the popularity of podcasts, amongst brands in particular, is the fact that they provide a whole range of opportunities for marketers. From targeted advertising spots for awareness and consideration campaigns to more long-form content creation via branded podcasts, brands who create their own podcasts or are included in others have an incredible opportunity to reach thousands of highly engaged, loyal listeners with their stories. Since podcast listeners do not accidentally tune in to a show, rather they have to actively seek it out, brands can capitalise on this level of engagement by building highly meaningful connections with their audience.
If we look at the creative industry alone, we can see that the ecosystem has also benefited from the growth of the podcast industry, with new opportunities for creative talent popping up every day. At Finyal Media we invest time and effort in training people with backgrounds in TV, film or radio to adapt their creative skills for podcasting and we only see this growing further. As producers of fictional content, every series we produce requires a team of around ten people, ranging from scriptwriters, cast, producers and directors to sound engineers, editors and more. It’s very important to us that there continues to be a pipeline of creative talent to fill these roles.
We believe podcasts will only continue to innovate and grow in popularity over the next few years. 2022 is set to be another year of growth for the industry in the region. Following Saudi Research and Media Group (SRMG)’s recent acquisition of media company and podcast network Thmanyah, we expect to see more investment from regional media companies in the podcast sector, as well as some consolidation as the industry matures. In the future, podcasts will be to radio what Netflix is to TV. Young people no longer consume content in a linear fashion and will only consider content that is delivered to them on-demand and on their own terms. While Netflix, YouTube and the other streaming platforms have had a bit of a head start over podcasts in the region, there is no doubt that the audio sector is moving swiftly in the same direction. The majority of our audience is under 30 years old and as this audience matures and takes their podcasts with them, the pool of listeners can only grow.
However, it is not just the audience that will continue to boom in the coming years. We also see potential for the industry to grow in terms of monetisation. Networks and creators are starting to lean into more creative ways of incorporating brands into podcasts, as well as carving out new licensing opportunities and growing the podcast subscriptions market. We are just scratching the surface in terms of what can be done in the podcasting space, so the best is certainly yet to come.
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