✊ Is it just harder to grow now?
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Hi friends, When I first got into podcasting in 2015, growth was easy. Or at least it felt that way. I know dozens of podcasters who launched shows in that era who quickly built up significant audiences around their shows that were—at least by today’s standards—wholly generic and uninteresting. Of course, starting a podcast then was much more difficult than today, but if you could get one up and running, you were off to the races. Around 2018, however, things started to shift. New clients for my agency would launch shows—often after seeing the near-instant success of their friends’ similar shows—to crickets. Instead of hundreds of listeners immediately flocking to their shows, they were having to work (hard) to get a few dozen. Since 2018, things have only gotten harder. More new shows, with more money and star power behind them have both pulled more listeners into podcasting as a medium and raised the bar on what listeners expect from the shows they follow. On the other side of the quality spectrum, better podcast tools have made starting a new show easier than ever… resulting in more low-quality pod-faded shows that make it harder for listeners to find quality, active shows on a topic they’re searching for. This shift in the quantity and quality has been a tough pill for many to swallow. I know several long-time podcasters who got a hefty dose of humility after launching new shows only to find that the same strategies, formats, and tactics that helped them quickly pull in tens of thousands of downloads on shows they launched a decade ago now fall entirely flat. Yes, podcasting has certainly changed. But consider the following stat: There are actually significantly fewer active podcasts today than there were in 2018. At the same time, there are also significantly more regular podcast listeners. Some basic supply and demand math, then would seem to suggest that more listeners / fewer shows = more growth opportunities. So is growth actually harder? Or are many creators simply operating on an outdated playbook? And if so, what does the updated podcast growth playbook look like for 2025? In this episode of Podcast Marketing Trends Explained, we dig into the conflicting data behind podcast growth rates and unpack why—for the right show, built on the right idea, produced in the right way—more, bigger, faster growth might be more accessible than ever before. You can add the episode to your listening queue in your favourite podcast app or watch on YouTube.
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