Kids podcasts will go mainstream this year. Now that adults are consuming more podcasts than ever, we’ll see patterns emerge as they share podcasts with kids — who are naturally engaged listeners and who love storytelling.
Over the past year, the conversation around kids podcasts has continued to gather steam. Media organizations like Nieman Lab, Hot Pod, The Current, The Atlantic, Poynter, educators’ sites, and parenting blogs continue to explore the benefits for kids of listening to podcasts, plus their lasting effects on development and learning.
Podcast producer Lindsay Patterson wondered why there aren’t more podcasts for kids, and Poynter columnist Melody Kramer countered with a list of public media options. But citing a collection of a couple dozen shows doesn’t cut it when you compare this modest number to the bajillions of podcasts created for adults. (“Bajillions” is a technical term.)
As a member of Kids Listen — the grassroots organization created by kids podcasters — I’ve become more aware of the triumphs and challenges that kids podcasts currently face. And while a handful of public media outlets and independent producers are making truly great podcasts for kids, we need to find solutions to affect changes in behavior, discovery issues, and user interfaces.
These key points will determine whether kids podcasts can go mainstream this year:
When we address behavior changes, discovery issues, and user interfaces, organizations will invest their resources in creating programming for kids. Now is the time to take what we’ve learned from the podcast revolution and apply it to our littlest listeners. I believe the children are our future — teach them well and let them listen to podcasts.
Libby Bawcombe is senior visual product designer at NPR.
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy
Rubina Madan Fillion Snapchat grows up
Nicholas Quah Podcasting’s coming class war
Dhiya Kuriakose The year of digital detoxing
Joanne Lipman The year of the drone, really
Libby Bawcombe Kids board the podcast train
David Weigel A test for online speech
Sam Ford The year we talk about our awful metrics
Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
Jim Friedlich A banner year for venture philanthropy
Cindy Royal Preparing the digital educator-scholar hybrid
David Chavern Fake news gets solved
Matt Karolian AI improves publishing
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen News after advertising may look like news before advertising
Nathalie Malinarich Making it easy
Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Christopher Meighan Unlocking a deeper mobile experience
Asma Khalid The year of the newsy podcast
Liz McMillen The year of deep insights
Richard Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Dan Gillmor Fix the demand side of news too
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
P. Kim Bui The year journalism teaches again
Andy Rossback The year of the user
Helen Havlak Chasing mobile search results
Moreno Cruz Osório The year of transparency in Brazilian journalism
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
Almar Latour Thanks, #fakenews
Burt Herman Local news gets interesting
Francesco Marconi The year of augmented writing
M. Scott Havens Quality advertising to pair with quality content
Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Annemarie Dooling UGC as a path out of the bubble
Margarita Noriega From pinning tweets to tweeting pins
Geetika Rudra Journalism is community
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Earn trust by working for (and with) readers
Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
Javaun Moradi What can we own?
Mary Meehan Feeling blue in a red state
Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
Priya Ganapati Mobile websites are ready for reinvention
Mike Ragsdale A smarter information diet
Nushin Rashidian A rise in high-price, high-value subscriptions
Mario García Virtual reality on mobile leaps forward
Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
Jeremy Barr A terrible year for Tiers B through D
Olivia Ma The year collaboration beats competition
Adam Thomas The coming collaboration across Europe
Aja Bogdanoff Comments start pulling their weight
Gabriel Snyder The aberration of 20th-century journalism
Carrie Brown We won’t do enough
Scott Dodd Nonprofits team up for impact
Mira Lowe News literacy, bias, and “Hamilton”
Kawandeep Virdee Moving deeper than the machine of clicks
Keren Goldshlager Defining a focus, and then saying no
Rachel Sklar Women are going to get loud
Tressie McMillan Cottom A path through the media’s coming legitimacy crisis
Sarah Marshall Focusing on the why of the click
Sue Schardt Objectivity, fairness, balance, and love
Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
Alice Antheaume A new test for French media
Pablo Boczkowski Fake news and the future of journalism
Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Caitlin Thompson High touch, high value
Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
Steve Henn The next revolution is voice
Ariane Bernard Better data about your users
Corey Ford The year of the rebelpreneur
Anita Zielina The sales funnel reaches (and changes) the newsroom
Alberto Cairo Communicating uncertainty to our readers
Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
Juliette De Maeyer and Dominique Trudel A rebirth of populist journalism
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
Vivian Schiller Tested like never before
Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
Reyhan Harmanci Bear witness — but then what?
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Erin Pettigrew A year of reflection in tech
AX Mina 2017 is for the attention innovators
Umbreen Bhatti A sense of journalists’ humanity
Liz Danzico The triumph of the small
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Amy Webb Journalism as a service
Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Tracie Powell Building reader relationships
Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
S.P. Sullivan Baking transparency into our routines
Dannagal G. Young The return of the gatekeepers
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
Errin Haines Chaos or community?
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Truthiness in private spaces
Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
Kathleen Kingsbury Print as a premium offering
Ryan McCarthy Platforms grow up or grow more toxic
David Skok What lies beyond paywalls
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Rebekah Monson Journalism is community-as-a-service
Millie Tran International expansion without colonial overtones
Zizi Papacharissi Distracted journalism looks in the mirror
Mandy Velez The audience is the source and the story
Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
Andrew Losowsky Building our own communities
Amy O'Leary Not just covering communities, reaching them
Andrea Silenzi Podcasts dive into breaking news analysis
Cory Haik Navigating power in Trump’s America
Emi Kolawole From empathy to community
Molly de Aguiar Philanthropists galvanize around news
Carla Zanoni Prioritizing emotional health
Andrew Haeg The year of listening
Eric Nuzum Podcasting stratifies into hard layers
Hillary Frey Forests need to burn to regrow
Dan Colarusso Let’s make live video we can love
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
Bill Adair The year of the fact-checking bot
Samantha Barry Messaging apps go mainstream
Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Lee Glendinning A call for great editing