According to Ms Netra Karambelkar in the International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology, 36 years ago, in 1986, as little as 1% of total media storage capacity was in digital form. However, by 2007, the figure stood at 94%, illustrating the speed at which digitalization came about.
The impact of digital media brought about a technological revolution combining the Internet, personal computing, and digital media giving human beings an opportunity to optimise information and entertainment at a level which we dreamt of. Smartphones enabled the pathway to convert dreams from the past into reality and the latest trendsetter has been the audio industry.
Technology Paves Way For Audio Platforms
The audio industry journey is inspiring. The advancement in technologies has always led to the rise of newer ways of audio consumption. Consumption of personalised audio rose to fame with the advent of the Walkman. Subsequently, MP3 players and iPods among other handy gadgets encouraged people to plug their earphones in and listen to their favourite songs creating a new impetus for the audio audience. With the advent of Podcasts in 2005, the worldview of the audio business started garnering momentum.
In a span of a few years, people transitioned from using a single music-playing gadget to a multi-faceted smartphone where people could do various things while listening to their favourite shows or songs simultaneously. The audio streaming industry gleamed with a noticeable boom as the internet's penetration spread.
Audio Is Audience Friendly
The audio industry’s audience-friendly aspect allows the audience to perform multiple activities like driving, exercising, cooking, cleaning, swimming, dance among other endless activities while tuning into their favourite audio content. With smartphones becoming affordable, the audio streaming industry rode merrily astride the tides of technology and culture.
Today more than 84% of the global population uses a smartphone and practices multi-tasking. It is only audio streaming that can support the cause of promoting multi-tasking as the television and video OTT industry restricts the attention of people. Reduction in the attention span of the general internet user puts audio OTT content in a better position of enablement avoiding the restrictions demanded by video OTT.
The convenience of listening to an audio series at the click of a button combined with great content aided the boom in demand for the audio streaming industry. The flywheel effect, as suggested by Jim Collins, states that continuous small efforts are required to build momentum, which can then perpetuate itself. In addition, with the passage of time, AI-enabled easy identification of listeners' choices further posits aspects of further restrengthening the case of audio platforms.
Creator Economy For Audio Platforms
The flywheel effect holds true for furtherance in audio series and thus creating business pathways for the audio industry. The amalgamation of creators, consumers, advertisers, and technology led to easy access to audio publishing and broadcasting, giving birth to newer audio platforms.
Empowerment of creators for exploring various forms of writing that appeal to listeners, help create and engage in the world of audio series. Albert Camus, the famous writer, philosopher and journalist said that the purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself, and this can also be said to be true about audio content.
Content Development On Audio Platforms
Audio content spaces started working towards telling compelling stories, with the right amount of gruesome, gripping, motivational, and emotional content leading to the furtherance of the audio series. While the creation of a video series is time-consuming and expensive, the cost and infrastructure for creating audio content comparatively economical.
Content generation plays a pivotal role in the world of audio, as they are one of the key elements enhancing revenue. The audio streaming industry constantly plays a balancing act between User Generated Content (UGC) and Professional Generated Content (PGC).
UGC is a larger community with various minds thinking about specific subjects and developing content on it, making it original tales, whereas PGC content is well-thought-about stories presented with great intricacies to make it sound appealing.
Furthermore, audio content has been free-flowing across languages and cities. Reports suggest that tier 2 and 3 towns are spending more time listening to audio series with thriller, crime, romance, and horror, being the main genres of content. Audio series make audio streaming an interesting platform for the audience.
Audio OTT Enhances Business
According to the FICCI-EY study ‘Audio OTT market size forecast in India FY 2021-2030’ the audio OTT market in India is expected to grow up to $1.1 billion in the next four years and up to $2.5 billion by the end of the financial year 2030. However, current audio platform trends suggest that the audio industry, riding the acceptance trend of audio series, would multiply by approximately 5X dominated by non-music audio entertainment.
The future of the audio streaming industry commands an upward streak due to the constant support of technological advancements, coupled with the increase in the listening and creator community.
Audio OTT players are now working towards building powerful, passionate, and addictive content through audio series. As the current audio consumption is exhibiting phenomenal growth, the traditional publishing ecosystem has also begun to show deeper interest while offering its content in audio format to increase the reach beyond readers.
The dominating non-music entertainment genre on audio platforms is audio series. It has been found that people have been spending hours together watching soaps, dailies, sports, and movies on OTT and television leading to visual fatigue according to the National Library of Medicine.
Disassociating from the visual fatigue, the audience started shifting their screen time to audio as, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the digital eye strain increased with constant glueing to digital screens, and users started experimenting with audio streaming.
The trend will continue as audio brings with it the critical aspect of convenience enabling a perfect rhythm.
(Disclaimer: Ashu Behl is the Senior Vice President - Content at Pocket FM. Views expressed are personal.)
