Almost all surveys of the podcast industry in 2024 agrees on one point: chat podcasts are king. as video increases in popularity (33 percent of US podcast listeners prefer to consume this way), advertising spending is increasing (estimated to exceed $4 billion worldwide), and viewership is steadily growing (8 percent year after year), it is the chat format, in its combative, enlightening and sometimes quite unserious splendor, that continually draws people in.
The ecosystem is profuse and unpredictable. These are the pillars that have become fixed elements of culture: The Joe Rogan Experience, Armchair expertand reading. Newest rate like I have had it and ShxtsnGigs (more on that later) have also found a large following. Other chatcasts, such as shay shay club, They seem to generate controversy with each release. “Katt Williams, please close the portal”, @nuffsaidny recently joked about X, alluding to the comedian special appearance since January when he prophetically proclaimed about the year 2024: “All lies will be exposed.”
“That quote, that relationship, it’s everything,” says Eric Eddings, vice president of audio at Hartbeat, Kevin Hart’s media company, of the bond that chat-casts can establish with listeners.
In 2014, along with Brittany Luse, Eddings released For color nerdsa weekly chat about pop culture, race, and current events (full disclosure: I appeared in an episode in 2017). After nerdsEddings went to Gimlet Media, where he co-hosted The assent (also with Luse) and produced for the programs Undone and Habitat, before moving to SiriusXM. Eddings currently heads up podcast development for Hartbeat. What was true for the medium when he started, he tells me, is still true today. On a recent video call, we discussed the state of the industry and its sometimes complicated evolutions.
JASON PARHAM: Why have chatcasts become so popular?
ERIC EDDINGS: There are a few reasons. To be honest, many companies wanted to find ways to invest less in programming. Narrative podcasts are very expensive to make. They require a big initial investment and then you try to figure out how to make them as successful as possible if they resonate with the public. And many companies have had difficulty bringing those types of projects to market given the difficulties of the entertainment media industry.
So it’s a question of money?
Chat-focused podcasts are a little easier to test, market, and create each week. You’ve seen a big shift towards that. Those are the macro influences. But that also changes the conversation a little bit.
How is that?
Although podcasting has been around for a while, we have also seen many more groups of people turn to podcasts in new ways. There is more familiarity with the medium. You’ve seen comedians, you’ve seen influencers. There was a trend at the beginning of the pandemic where people were saying, “Oh, we need to start a podcast.” Whereas now I think people have ideas or find people they want to collaborate with and see podcasting as the place to explore that. It’s a really flexible medium. Collaboration allows experimentation. And that kind of experimentation is much easier in a chat context because the conversation is the point.