Podcasts are Going Mainstream.

Podcasts are Going Mainstream.

In September of 2006, the third season of The Office premiered on NBC, that season went on to win an Emmy and a Peabody Award. September 2019, Pam Fischer and Angela Kinsey of The Office unveiled just the trailer for their new podcast titled Office Ladies.With just the four minute trailer uploaded, the show sits at #1 on the iTunes Podcast charts. Office Ladies has amassed more than 3,000 5-star reviews without releasing a single full episode. 

Likewise, Ron Burgundy has found a second life in the podcast world 15 years after Anchorman was first released. A-List actor Will Ferrell is now a podcaster. Chart-topping rapper T.I. began releasing episodes of his new podcast series Expeditiously” with PodcastOne. Major media companies and podcast players are throwing bags of money at celebrities and putting even more money behind marketing their shiny new content. 

The popularity of podcasts has continued to boom for several years. It was only a matter of time for sponsors and media companies to meet listeners demands. 

Match.com is currently running an ad campaign that features Pitch Perfect’s Rebel Wilson posing as a podcast host. This type of mainstream exposure is great for the podcast industry. It will be interesting to see if Match takes the ad-campaign further and actually produces episodes. That would be a great example of content marketing. 

With the overall segmentation of media in the midst of the streaming wars, media companies are in an arms race for content. The podcast world is following this trend. The environment is ripe for new original content hosted by familiar faces, just make sure not to jump the shark!