Audio, which struggled for decades as a media category, is breaking out now, as tech enables new content formats as well as new monetization and delivery models
As most of the major media categories — music, video and video games — have existed for decades, we tend to forget that media is technology.
MatthewBall.vcMatthew Ball
Context & Ripple Effects
Ball's argument — that media is technology — lands on a category with receipts: by early 2018, Nielsen had US music crossing into majority-streamed territory for the first time, with on-demand audio hitting 400B streams, up from 252B a year earlier (54% of all US music now streamed). The same tech dynamic is spawning entirely new formats, like the wave of publications partnering with Audm, Curio, and Noa to turn written journalism into narrated article apps.
The monetization layer is maturing in parallel: podcasting moved past its gold-rush phase years ago, with audiences and ad budgets growing even as some worried about falling ad prices (podcasting audiences and ad budgets kept climbing). What came before this piece was a medium proving demand; what it frames is why the economics are finally catching up.
First-order effects
Publishers gain an entirely new distribution surface for existing text content through narration apps like Audm, Curio, and Noa, converting archives into audio inventory at marginal cost.
Podcast producers and networks shift focus from winning exclusive content to building ad-tech capability, since iHeart Media's purchase of Triton Digital signals infrastructure now commands deal-making attention.
Second-order effects
Ad-tech intermediaries become the consolidation target in podcasting rather than studios or hit shows, echoing Benedict Evans' earlier observation of how corporations controlling music and ebooks saw their strategic value drain toward tech platforms (content owners losing strategic value to tech).
Streaming's majority share forces legacy format economics — downloads, physical, radio-style measurement — to compete against always-on, addressable delivery, pressuring advertisers to reallocate budgets toward on-demand audio.
Third-order effects
If ad tech, not exclusivity, decides winners in audio, the category structurally converges with search and social: a few infrastructure owners capture margin while content competes as undifferentiated supply.
Audio's breakout reframes every 'struggling' media category as a waiting technology problem — once delivery and monetization are rebuilt on software rails, the same pattern plausibly repeats for other legacy formats.
The trend: Media categories break out when software rebuilds their delivery and monetization layers, shifting value from content owners to the platforms running distribution.
Audio's Opportunity & Who Will Capture It — The content, business models, and health of every media category is driven by technology. And audio tech has never been so diverse + dynamic. After decades of struggles, audio is ready to grow, not just replace https://www.matthewball.v…
Cool story & data. Ignore the mouth breathers who yell into the ether that “there are too many podcasts.” 1. There's no such thing as “too much” of a media type online, totally misunderstands the internet. 2. This is your chance to be a pioneer, it's just getting started. https:/…
Caught up to this excellent essay. now. Not nearly as excited as Matthew is about virtual concerts (not just because I don't like them personally, but because I think the biz opttys are limited to one-offs, so not nearly so scalable). But! Great long-term framing and thinking. ht…
Fascinating, must-read look at the future and business models of audio through the perspective of time, technology and video and video gaming by @ballmatthew ht @Neal_Freyman https://www.matthewball.vc/...
This essay is the most comprehensive and cerebral accounts of media consumption patterns and the interplay of technology, content and business models. Thanks @ballmatthew https://twitter.com/...
Required reading for all media/music peeps: @ballmatthew's deep dive into the evolution of media formats—music, video, video games—with a focus on audio's re-emerging potential to be a disrupting force. An entire college course on media compressed into a single article. 🎧 https:/…
Highlighting this again 1) because its so good and 2) because its emblematic of how lucky we are to live in this age of content This essay is free...full of hard to get, hard to understand, and hard to present data...and better than almost any non-fiction book on shelves! https:/…
This may be the best business/technology essay I've read this year. Thanks @ballmatthew for the fantastic insight on audio's place in the media landscape, and for continually raising the bar 🙏🏽 https://twitter.com/...