—The Evolution

From Indie Audio Blogs to Seven-Figure Deals, We’re All Ears for Podcasts

Welcome to CB's weekly newsletter, The Evolution. Each Tuesday, we're charting the ups and downs of a trending product, buzzy industry, innovative service or revolutionary idea. From our seemingly sudden obsession with drones to the origins of the at-home workout craze, The Evolution examines the zeitgeist by looking at where we've been and where we are going. This week, we're detailing the history of podcasting.

Growing up out of its humble beginnings as an indie medium for hobbyists slinging “online radio shows” about topics like politics and art, podcasting has since become a multibillion-dollar industry. An estimated 150 million podcast episodes are available at our fingertips, leveraged by inexpensive mics and accessible audio-editing software that allows anyone to become a publisher. Since podcasts were invented in 2004, crime shows have helped overturn convictions (In The Dark), true stories have become Emmy-winning television series (The Dropout) and news shows have kept people up to date (The Daily). The global podcasting market was valued at US$23.75 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow by 27.6 per cent in the next seven years, reaching US$130 billion by 2030, according to market research company Grand View Research.

↓ Low: 1980s
MP3 audio-blogging fails to catch on

Technically, bloggers posted audio files to the internet as early as the 1980s. In 1982, AT&T Bell Labs researcher Karlheinz Brandenburg tried to figure out how to compress audio so that it could be easily transferred over a standard telephone line. The Moving Picture Experts Group, or MPEG, lent its name to that digital encoding process—MPEG Audio Layer III—and the resulting file was called the MP3. Audio-blog files were usually in MP3 or Flash format, but the short-lived idea fizzled because at the time there was no easy way to distribute the recordings to would-be listeners. 

↑ High: 2001
The first podcast feed goes live 

In October 2000, two guys had a two-day brainstorm in a New York City hotel room to make modern digital syndication possible. Former MTV VJ Adam Curry pitched software developer and self-described media hacker Dave Winer an idea to make the internet “everyman’s broadcast medium.” An early blogging pioneer, Winer created Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, a web feed that allowed users to receive updates from a blog or website of their choice. Curry wanted to leverage Winer’s tech to distribute audio files instead. Three months later, Winer adapted his RSS code to publish the first-ever podcast feed: a single song, the Grateful Dead’s "US Blues."

↑ High: 2001
Steve Jobs unveils the iPod

Dressed in his signature blue jeans and black turtleneck, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the original iPod in 2001 to complement the newly minted iTunes library. Jobs dubbed the MP3 music player a “breakthrough digital device,” promising the ability to carry 1,000 songs in your pocket. The playing-card-sized device featured the now-iconic click wheel—and it created a desire for seamless portable listening. Though podcasting hadn't yet taken off, the iPod set the stage and provided the tech required to make it a reality with iTunes software. 

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↑ High: 2014
Serial ushers in a golden age of podcasting

Podcasting was mostly an indie affair until Serial, made by the producers of This American Life, captured the attention of popular culture. Millions of listeners downloaded Serial each week as host Sarah Koenig unravelled the investigation into a teenager’s 1999 murder in Baltimore, Md. By the time Serial wrapped up the 12-episode run, it had hit 40 million downloads. Serial was the first podcast to be parodied on Saturday Night Live and the first to win a Peabody Award. Experts say the podcast ushered in a golden age of podcasting: Its strong narrative style set the blueprint for serialized audio storytelling, with other “prestige” podcasts cashing in on the rising interest and growing advertising budgets. Since 2015, podcast ad revenue has exploded from US$105 million to over US$2.1 billion in 2022. 

↓ Low: 2022
Spotify keeps controversial podcaster on their roster 

In May 2020, Spotify signed a US$200 million exclusivity deal with Joe Rogan as the music streaming service looked to claim a piece of the podcasting pie. But the former Fear Factor host and comedian came under fire for reportedly spreading misinformation, such as conspiracies about the Covid vaccine, through his podcast, which garners tens of millions of listeners per episode. In January 2022, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell removed their music from the platform in protest. The bad press put Spotify at the centre of a heated debate about free speech, but the company kept its biggest podcast on the platform. 

↓ Low: 2023
Toronto Police Service gets slammed for podcast budget 

In February, Toronto’s police force came under fire after deciding to spend nearly $337,000 in taxpayer money on a podcast series, 24 Shades of Blue. The Toronto Police Service explained the 47-episode podcast offered a behind-the-scenes look at policing in an attempt to build public trust, with episodes exploring unsolved missing persons cases and other cold cases. But critics questioned whether producing a podcast was a good use of public money—as the city’s 2023 budget gave police an extra $48 million in funding. 

How will podcasting evolve? We asked two experts. 

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