It's only been a month since the podcast industry descended on London for the 2026 Podcast Show.
A few thoughts I've had since then.
Apple made a big splash with its announcement that it would support video podcasts, and many hosting providers (including Transistor.fm) now support them.
But there are still a lot of unknowns! Will creators gravitate to it? Will they be consistent in distributing video to Apple? Will younger consumers start using Apple Podcasts? Will they switch from YouTube? What would make them switch?
There are also still some open questions around measurement and analytics. Apple still doesn't show creators how many video plays they're getting in their Podcast Connect dashboard.
Podcast conferences have always had some tension between serving the needs of the industry (giving business folks a place to meet, etc.) and the needs of creators (you know, the people making podcasts).
One thing that concerns me is that I didn't see many creators on the conference floor, and even more concerning was the lack of young creators.
The podcast charts are currently dominated by older folks:
Gen X & Older Millennials (Ages 40-58): Joe Rogan (58), Dax Shepard (51), Bill Simmons (56), Amy Poehler (54), and Dr. Andrew Huberman (49).
Core Millennials (Ages 30-39): Alex Cooper (31), Steven Bartlett (33), Emma Chamberlain (25), and Steven O (35).
If we don't see an influx of younger Gen Z and Gen Alpha creators, we're in trouble.
Next year, I'd like to see more sessions geared towards young creators, and for us to think about how we can attract more Gen Z/Alpha folks to the medium.
I don't think mass-produced AI-generated shows are a big threat to podcasting, mostly because I don't think consumers like them.
Where I do see some disruption is where consumers start asking ChatGPT and other LLMs for information they would normally get from podcasts.
I still have some other notes I want to include here.
Cheers,
Justin Jackson
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