More people than every before are listening to podcasts and for longer

Podcasters should be empowered to create and make money from their podcast

Acast are the worlds leading independent podcast company and represent over 60,000 podcasts globally

18.9m people listen to podcasts at least once a week in the UK, which places podcasting firmly in the media.  More people than every before but also listening for longer.  68 million hours of podcasts every single week.  Diversity of content, and platforms developing as well as accessibility of the space. One of the most accessible platforms to create and to listen.

Podcasters should be empowered to create and make money from their podcast as there  is an  expectation podcast advertising will hit £54m this year.  Through ad funded content, dynamically inserted or not, sponsorships by announce or branded content which has come off the back of natural podcasts becoming brands in their own right.  A podcast at the epicentre of a campaign seeds live events and subscriptions for example.  Acast are working on how to make better use of the podcast’s ecosystem.

Complement conversation by hand creative licence over to the creator to put it into context.

The latest Acast innovation is conversational target which is a 30 sec ads, lots of different conversations that are relevant to different brands for example food brands might not want a food and drink episode, they could curate episodes they want to advertise on that are relevant.

Other ways to deliver revenue are things like community support through subscriptions and creators can deliver value in return.  A loyal audience is as good as a big audience for delivering a successful subscription revenue.