How many times have we used the expression “Seeing is believing” in casual conversation, perhaps to convince a friend to trust what we were saying? Today, however, people seem to rely more on hearing to absorb information, gain knowledge, and ultimately believe in something.
We know very well that the trend of print newspaper sales is steadily declining, but fortunately, this does not coincide with a decline in the circulation of news. Today, audio is the new medium.
According to Edison’s “Share Of Ear” Q4 2023 report, the time spent listening to non-music audio content (both on FM Radio and Podcasts) has increased from 27% in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic to the current 40%.
This significant leap shows that podcasts have gained more ground, tripling the time spent listening to them.
As for the audience, it’s not just the so-called Gen Z who are podcast-addicted. The most notable boom in listenership is among those over 35, while penetration among younger audiences is stabilizing. This indicates that the audience using on-demand audio to access information is growing.
One of the most interesting and novel aspects of this research, however, is the comparison between Ad-free and Ad-supported content audiences. Let’s be honest: only the latter represent the “contestable” context for media buyers and the digital audio industry. The study reveals that only 55% of the audience’s listening time is actually exposed to audio advertising, with even lower percentages when considering only dominant podcast platforms.
In Italy, Audioboost has focused on converting a segment of the audience into on-demand audio that escapes platform data and, like FM Radio, is 100% ad-supported. Through Speakup-Article™, a proprietary solution to massively and instantly convert online articles into “in-article Podcasts,” faithful reproductions of online content are created.
To keep the audience listening for as long as possible, continuous A/B testing is conducted, and the best AI Voice Generation solutions are employed. Advertisements do not arrive randomly or abruptly but are “smart”—powered by intelligent algorithms patented by Audioboost. These algorithms insert ads exclusively at the most opportune moments to avoid disturbing the online listener.