The U.S. podcasting industry had a record year in 2017, reaching $314 million in revenue – a figure that’s up 86 percent from the $169 million in 2016, according to new study from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and jointly conducted by IAB and PwC U.S.
Podcasting industry is not a brand-new product.
Podcasting, in its early forms, dates back to the early to mid-2000s. However, interest declined as streaming services by the end of the decades, from Spotify to Netflix, took the main stage. Moving to the mobile internet era, the broadcasting programs have been declining with brain drain crisises.
2017 was a big year for podcasting.
2017 was a big year for podcasting, arguably the biggest. The self-reported podcast advertising revenue continued to rise steadily, growing 94% between Q4 2016 and Q4 2017 and yielding an 18% compound quarterly growth rate. 
Thanks to the new appetite of audio books, this industry has been given a new life with new approaches. The new users’ growth is highly related to the widely use of smart phone and other device, especially the smart speaker.
The ownership of smart speaker is blooming. The number of US smart speaker users is expected to rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 47.9% between 2016 and 2020, from 16.0 million to 76.5 million. The voice assistant technology is integrated into the smart-home devices, quickly narrowing the gap of users’ number in the smart phone devices.
The market is expanding with the new users’ habits.
The users are adapting to these kinds of browsing habits.
For example, the number of average unique weekly users of National Public Radio, one of the most famous radio in U.S., had gone to 3.5 million by 2016, up 40% year on year.
The new trends happening in the podcasting.
1. Smart speaker plays an essential role in the podcasting industry growth.
The market share of smart speaker experiences a rocket growth in the 2017, supporting by the voice assistance technology. At the same time, this kind of technology brings the growth space of podcasting industry.
2. Podcasting industry will strength the customer stickiness of smart speaker.
The voice controlled smart speaker is rapidly becoming the next big thing, and the high-quality content consumption is the basis of this big thing. The voice assistance released consumers’ hands to operate, and the high-quality content improves the customer stickiness.
