I don’t know about you, but I rarely listen to the radio anymore. Like “on demand” television, radio podcasting has made audio programs “on demand” too. For years I loved to listen to a number of NPR shows and struggled to listen live. The iPhone changed all that with podcasting, allowing me to listen to those shows whenever I wanted and to share them with friends as well. Over the last few years, I have noticed an ever-increasing number of podcasts I am interested in listening to and it turns out, I am not alone. Some 25% of Americans now listen to podcasts and the number is growing quickly.
The power of podcasts hasn’t gone unnoticed. The NPR show Serial, hosted by Sarah Koenig, created a stir in 2014 with the story of Adnan Syed and the murder of Mae Min Lee in 1999. Because of the show, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals filed a decision allowing Syed to appeal his conviction, based on the ineffective assistance of counsel pointed out in the podcasts. The episodes from that season have now been downloaded over 80 million times.
Concordia University noticed the trend of podcasts and put together this infographic on podcasting. Do you listen? What shows are your favorites?
