If you’ve been keeping tabs on the world of podcasting over the past couple of years, then it’s likely easy for you to visualize how the podcast landscape has transformed into a game of Pac-Man, one in which audio brands compete to gobble up a variety of shows and platforms in their quest for size, scale, and all-out success.
From major acquisitions and exclusive deals to talent recruitment, there’s no doubt about it: Podcasting is consolidating. And more quickly han you think. Back in 2021, the top seven podcast networks reached 50% of weekly podcast listeners. Fast forward to 2022 (and a few substantial M&A’s later), and you’ll find that four major networks wield 50% of all weekly podcast listeners, per the findings of Tom Webster (formerly of Edison Research, now of Sounds Profitable).
Podcast consolidation leads to competition. And they say competition breeds excellence. But let’s be honest: It breeds stress, anxiety, and inevitable burnout. It makes it untenable for new voices and perspectives to hold space and grow. And that’s not what podcasting needs. It needs collaboration and a renewed sense of creative cooperation and compassion at a time where the industry finds itself creeping further toward competitive silos and all-around divisiveness.
In 2023, my hope is for podcast makers to overcome this insatiable need to be the first, the best, and the one-and-only, and to instead focus on being collaborators and audio allies. That means acknowledging some deep, dark truths:
Don’t get me wrong: A little competition can be fun, and it can be fruitful. But in 2023, let’s not focus our podcasting energies toward being “better than all,” but rather being “collaborative with all,” seeking partnerships rather than perceiving rivals, as we work toward a common goal: Amplifying humanity through audio.
Joni Deutsch is vice president of podcast marketing and audience development at The Podglomerate.
If you’ve been keeping tabs on the world of podcasting over the past couple of years, then it’s likely easy for you to visualize how the podcast landscape has transformed into a game of Pac-Man, one in which audio brands compete to gobble up a variety of shows and platforms in their quest for size, scale, and all-out success.
From major acquisitions and exclusive deals to talent recruitment, there’s no doubt about it: Podcasting is consolidating. And more quickly han you think. Back in 2021, the top seven podcast networks reached 50% of weekly podcast listeners. Fast forward to 2022 (and a few substantial M&A’s later), and you’ll find that four major networks wield 50% of all weekly podcast listeners, per the findings of Tom Webster (formerly of Edison Research, now of Sounds Profitable).
Podcast consolidation leads to competition. And they say competition breeds excellence. But let’s be honest: It breeds stress, anxiety, and inevitable burnout. It makes it untenable for new voices and perspectives to hold space and grow. And that’s not what podcasting needs. It needs collaboration and a renewed sense of creative cooperation and compassion at a time where the industry finds itself creeping further toward competitive silos and all-around divisiveness.
In 2023, my hope is for podcast makers to overcome this insatiable need to be the first, the best, and the one-and-only, and to instead focus on being collaborators and audio allies. That means acknowledging some deep, dark truths:
Don’t get me wrong: A little competition can be fun, and it can be fruitful. But in 2023, let’s not focus our podcasting energies toward being “better than all,” but rather being “collaborative with all,” seeking partnerships rather than perceiving rivals, as we work toward a common goal: Amplifying humanity through audio.
Joni Deutsch is vice president of podcast marketing and audience development at The Podglomerate.
Josh Schwartz The AI spammers are coming
An Xiao Mina Journalism in a time of permacrisis
Eric Holthaus As social media fragments, marginalized voices gain more power
Ryan Nave Citizen journalism, but make it equitable
Alex Perry New paths to transparency without Twitter
Surya Mattu Data journalists learn from photojournalists
Karina Montoya More reporters on the antitrust beat
Larry Ryckman We’ll work together with our competitors
Priyanjana Bengani Partisan local news networks will collaborate
Andrew Donohue We’ll find out whether journalism can, indeed, save democracy
Barbara Raab More journalism funders will take more risks
Parker Molloy We’ll reach new heights of moral panic
Delano Massey The industry shakes its imposter syndrome
Nicholas Diakopoulos Journalists productively harness generative AI tools
Ryan Kellett Airline-like loyalty programs try to tie down news readers
Eric Thurm Journalists think of themselves as workers
Paul Cheung More news organizations will realize they are in the business of impact, not eyeballs
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Mission-driven metrics become our North Star
Joni Deutsch Podcast collaboration — not competition — breeds excellence
Cari Nazeer and Emily Goligoski News organizations step up their support for caregivers
Christoph Mergerson The rot at the core of the news business
Tre'vell Anderson Continued culpability in anti-trans campaigns
Emma Carew Grovum The year to resist forgetting about diversity
Basile Simon Towards supporting criminal accountability
Matt Rasnic More newsroom workers turn to organized labor
Jacob L. Nelson Despite it all, people will still want to be journalists
Esther Kezia Thorpe Subscription pressures force product innovation
Lisa Heyamoto The independent news industry gets a roadmap to sustainability
Jessica Clark Open discourse retrenches
Bill Grueskin Local news will come to rely on AI
Michael Schudson Journalism gets more and more difficult
Jaden Amos TikTok personality journalists continue to rise
Ryan Gantz “I’m sorry, but I’m a large language model”
Dana Lacey Tech will screw publishers over
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Well-being will become a core tenet of journalism
Raney Aronson-Rath Journalists will band together to fight intimidation
Mael Vallejo More threats to press freedom across the Americas
Khushbu Shah Global reporting will suffer
Stefanie Murray The year U.S. media stops screwing around and becomes pro-democracy
Joanne McNeil Facebook and the media kiss and make up
Sarah Stonbely Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels
David Skok Renewed interest in human-powered reporting
Leezel Tanglao Community partnerships drive better reporting
Eric Ulken Generative AI brings wrongness at scale
Ayala Panievsky It’s time for PR for journalism
Anita Varma Journalism prioritizes the basic need for survival
Anthony Nadler Confronting media gerrymandering
Tim Carmody Newsletter writers need a new ethics
Sue Cross Thinking and acting collectively to save the news
Peter Sterne AI enters the newsroom
Alexandra Svokos Working harder to reach audiences where they are
Cory Bergman The AI content flood
Kirstin McCudden We’ll codify protection of journalism and newsgathering
Joe Amditis AI throws a lifeline to local publishers
Pia Frey Publishers start polling their users at scale
Jarrad Henderson Video editing will help people understand the media they consume
Nicholas Thompson The year AI actually changes the media business
Dannagal G. Young Stop rewarding elite performances of identity threat
Victor Pickard The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce
Wilson Liévano Diaspora journalism takes the next step
Jennifer Choi and Jonathan Jackson Funders finally bet on next-generation news entrepreneurs
Daniel Trielli Trust in news will continue to fall. Just look at Brazil.
Shanté Cosme The answer to “quiet quitting” is radical empathy
Eric Nuzum A focus on people instead of power
Brian Stelter Finding new ways to reach news avoiders
Nicholas Jackson There will be launches — and we’ll keep doing the work
Jennifer Brandel AI couldn’t care less. Journalists will care more.
Doris Truong Workers demand to be paid what the job is worth
Gordon Crovitz The year advertisers stop funding misinformation
Emily Nonko Incarcerated reporters get more bylines
Burt Herman The year AI truly arrives — and with it the reckoning
Kaitlin C. Miller Harassment in journalism won’t get better, but we’ll talk about it more openly
Cassandra Etienne Local news fellowships will help fight newsroom inequities
Jody Brannon We’ll embrace policy remedies
Kavya Sukumar Belling the cat: The rise of independent fact-checking at scale
Francesco Zaffarano There is no end of “social media”
Ståle Grut Your newsroom experiences a Midjourney-gate, too
Errin Haines Journalists on the campaign trail mend trust with the public
Johannes Klingebiel The innovation team, R.I.P.
Nikki Usher This is the year of the RSS reader. (Really!)
Sam Gregory Synthetic media forces us to understand how media gets made
Taylor Lorenz The “creator economy” will be astroturfed
Alan Henry A reckoning with why trust in news is so low
Sarah Alvarez Dream bigger or lose out
Ariel Zirulnick Journalism doubles down on user needs
Jessica Maddox Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture
Jim VandeHei There is no “peak newsletter”
Martina Efeyini Talk to Gen Z. They’re the experts of Gen Z.
Upasna Gautam Technology that performs at the speed of news
Jenna Weiss-Berman The economic downturn benefits the podcasting industry. (No, really!)
Janet Haven ChatGPT and the future of trust
Joshua P. Darr Local to live, wire to wither
Anna Nirmala News organizations get new structures
Jesse Holcomb Buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled
Gabe Schneider Well-funded journalism leaders stop making disparate pay
Brian Moritz Rebuilding the news bundle
John Davidow A year of intergenerational learning
Snigdha Sur Newsrooms get nimble in a recession
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau More of the same
Ben Werdmuller The internet is up for grabs again
Susan Chira Equipping local journalism
Janelle Salanga Journalists work from a place of harm reduction
Andrew Losowsky Journalism realizes the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter
Jim Friedlich Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage
Hillary Frey Death to the labor-intensive memo for prospective hires
Sue Schardt Toward a new poetics of journalism
Al Lucca Digital news design gets interesting again
Jonas Kaiser Rejecting the “free speech” frame
Molly de Aguiar and Mandy Van Deven Narrative change trend brings new money to journalism
Felicitas Carrique and Becca Aaronson News product goes from trend to standard
Rachel Glickhouse Humanizing newsrooms will be a badge of honor
Michael W. Wagner The backlash against pro-democracy reporting is coming
Don Day The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.
Mariana Moura Santos A woman who speaks is a woman who changes the world
J. Siguru Wahutu American journalism reckons with its colonialist tendencies
Kathy Lu We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders
Julia Angwin Democracies will get serious about saving journalism
Peter Bale Rising costs force more digital innovation
Juleyka Lantigua Newsrooms recognize women of color as the canaries in the coal mine
Megan Lucero and Shirish Kulkarni The future of journalism is not you
Walter Frick Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets
A.J. Bauer Covering the right wrong
Laxmi Parthasarathy Unlocking the silent demand for international journalism
Alexandra Borchardt The year of the climate journalism strategy
Mario García More newsrooms go mobile-first
Richard Tofel The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates
Laura E. Davis The year we embrace the robots — and ourselves
David Cohn AI made this prediction
Anika Anand Independent news businesses lead the way on healthy work cultures
S. Mitra Kalita “Everything sucks. Good luck to you.”
Sarabeth Berman Nonprofit local news shows that it can scale
Amethyst J. Davis The slight of the great contraction
Sumi Aggarwal Smart newsrooms will prioritize board development
Sue Robinson Engagement journalism will have to confront a tougher reality
Gina Chua The traditional story structure gets deconstructed
Christina Shih Shared values move from nice-to-haves to essentials
Mauricio Cabrera It’s no longer about audiences, it’s about communities
Jakob Moll Journalism startups will think beyond English
Tamar Charney Flux is the new stability
Alex Sujong Laughlin Credit where it’s due
Moreno Cruz Osório Brazilian journalism turns wounds into action
Dominic-Madori Davis Everyone finally realizes the need for diverse voices in tech reporting
Sarah Marshall A web channel strategy won’t be enough
Cindy Royal Yes, journalists should learn to code, but…
Simon Galperin Philanthropy stops investing in corporate media
Kerri Hoffman Podcasting goes local
Kaitlyn Wells We’ll prioritize media literacy for children
Rodney Gibbs Recalibrating how we work apart
Elite Truong In platform collapse, an opportunity for community
Danielle K. Brown and Kathleen Searles DEI efforts must consider mental health and online abuse
Sam Guzik AI will start fact-checking. We may not like the results.
Bill Adair The year of the fact-check (no, really!)
Mar Cabra The inevitable mental health revolution
Masuma Ahuja Journalism starts working for and with its communities