A look at the crowded podcast market, where competition has made almost everything in the business more difficult, and some say no one is taking creative risks
& its same kind of 'pivot to video'/ corporate media fuckery that happens to every good creative medium/thing — is so inspiring i could cry https://twitter.com/... John DeLore / @revjohndelore : Gotta echo the headline: no hate to karaoke. But, yeah, I agree. And I think another presumption is that you can reverse-engineer a success & then make it with less resources than the original. Like it's paint by number. (No hate to paint by number) https://twitter.com/... Samer Kamal / @samerkamal : Between the ease of market entrance and old media jumping in, the podcast market lost its luster. Unless you're a big name or an early winner, creative is desperately needed to breakaway. https://twitter.com/... Will James / @otherwilljames : I got into making podcasts in 2018, and things just felt... different than they do now. For a while, I've been struggling to articulate the sentiment in this quote. https://www.vulture.com/... https://twitter.com/... @risj_oxford : “When was the last time a single [podcast] title was being dissected by everyone you know?,” asks @nwquah, on the dearth of blockbuster podcasts like @serial https://www.vulture.com/... @tonyamosley : “For some in the business, the medium's diminishing ability to drive such moments poses an existential problem. What does it mean for podcasting as an art form if it rarely inspires widespread critical discussion?” @nwquah https://www.vulture.com/... Starlee Kine / @starleekine : Mystery Show wasn't limited run, it was cancelled. And @DeadEyespodcast is at least as big a hit as The Bear https://twitter.com/... Galen Beebe / @galenbeebe : This piece basically asks “what happens when podcasting stops producing [blockbuster shows everyone talks about]?” and also, has it stopped? Here's a thread with my thoughts. 1/ https://www.vulture.com/... Rebecca Lavoie / @reblavoie : Nick's piece is awesome. One thing to note: When downloads started getting counted via IAB 3 standards, *all* of our downloads took huge, huge hits as well, because it turns out a lot of them weren't actually downloads. https://twitter.com/... Julia Barton / @bartona104 : Podcasting was always going to become “radio” because ads demand inventory and inventory demands frequency. But the competition for production talent is not going backwards to the days of broadcast's monopoly. Quite the opposite. https://www.vulture.com/... Steve Wilson / @stephenwilson : My take as someone who had the privilege of working on the hits, the content quality hasn't changed — it's actually increased. But, the platforms focus, strategies, and tactics have and are thus less effective at driving fame for any one show. https://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
The Vulture piece lands at the end of a long slide that the related coverage has been documenting for years. In 2018 podcasting was 'past the gold rush stage' but still growing audiences and ad budgets (falling ad prices were already a worry); by mid-2019 Blubrry counted over 700,000 podcasts, with thousands launching monthly, and the 'peak podcast' question was live. Then came the pandemic demand dip and old media's arrival — Audible in talks to acquire celebrity podcasts while Amazon Music prepared its own entry.
What changed now is the diagnosis: it is not just that supply is crowded, but that competition has made almost everything in the business harder and, per the showrunners quoted, chilled creative risk-taking. The relationships in this corpus point to mechanics — IAB 3 measurement adoption cutting many shows' reported downloads, advertisers demanding inventory and frequency, and platform strategies proving less effective at manufacturing breakout fame for individual shows.
First-order effects
- Working producers feel it directly: the corpus notes Mystery Show was cancelled outright rather than allowed a limited run, the kind of outcome behind claims that no one is taking creative risks.
- Ad economics shift toward radio-like commercial models — ads demanding inventory and frequency squeeze shows built on slow, experimental formats.
Second-order effects
- Old media and platforms double down on what they can underwrite: celebrity-led, acquisition-friendly audio (the Audible/Amazon path), which further crowds out independent discovery since platform tactics are less effective at creating breakout fame anyway.
- Measurement discipline compounds the squeeze — IAB 3 standards already made many shows' download numbers drop significantly, pressuring ad pricing just as buyers demand more frequency.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, podcasting consolidates around platform-owned celebrity inventory while genuinely risky work either dies or migrates to other mediums — the same corporate-media cycle the article's respondents compare to the 'pivot to video'.
- Audio converges with the broader episodic-video flow across streaming and social apps, competing inside an attention bundle rather than as a distinct medium.
The trend: Podcasting is completing the familiar lifecycle from creator-led gold rush to platform-owned, frequency-driven commercial medium, with creative risk-taking priced out along the way.