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