Ad Boom for Podcasting

In many ways, podcasting has been the bastard-child of the user-generated content world – talked about but mostly unloved by the masses – while blogging and video-blogging have hogged the spotlight.

eMarketer, however, believes podcast advertising is poised to explode (relatively speaking). The research firm, which seems to be bullish about an awful lot of online markets (the New Forrester Research?) suggests U.S. podcasting ad spending will nearly triple to $435-million by 2012 from $165-million in 2007.

All things considered, it’s pretty impressive growth. Perhaps I should revive the Talking Tech podcast given this bullish environment.

eMarketer suggests advertisers will be seduced attracted by the growth of the podcasting audience to 65 million by 2012 – with 25 million being active users who listen to a podcast at least once a week. The audience growth will be driven by:

- Greater ease of consumption for podcast content
– Growing awareness of podcasting
– Terrestrial radio’s use and promotion of podcasting
– Increased penetration of portable players
– The evolution of smart phones and proliferation of affordable mobile data plans

Frankly, I don’t see (or hear) this kind of growth in the size of the ad market or audience. To me, podcasting will remain a second-tier UGC activity for a niche audience – mostly geeks – as opposed to a mainstream medium. Then again, I spent considerable time driving on the weekend, and commercial radio is mostly crap so perhaps podcasting could thrive if MP3 connectors become standard in new cars.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Podcasting