Podcast: The format that reinvented radio turns 20

Condition “podcast” comes from the combination of the words “iPod”, the name portable media player developed by the company Manzanawhich allowed users to download audio files and was very popular in the 2000s, and the English term broadcast, which means diffusion.

There are different years and dates that can be taken as a reference, to determine the origin and first steps of this Format from Audiowhich consists of audio recorded episodes and is transmitted online, but the year 2004 is considered crucial, when the word “podcast” (podcast, in Spanish) and its variant technology RSS, is used to distribute digital content to mesh.

Before the term “podcast” was coined, there were already broadcast radio programs that uploaded their own internet contentbut starting in 2004, this system underwent a major evolution that led to the so-called ‘audio blogs’ that now produce numerous newspapers and radio and television channelsattracting millions of subscribers.

In 2023. industry podcasting collected 464.7 million listeners worldwide, and by 2024 the number of podcast listeners is expected to exceed 500 million, according to statistics from the platform specialized in data analysis Demandsage (www.demandsage.com).

According to the same source, there are more than 5 million podcasts worldwide, gathering more than 70 million episodes between them, and in 2024, there are expected to be more than 100 million active podcast listeners in the United States, where the average American listens every week 8 podcasts.

Origin and evolution

In the 1990s, a Spanish radio network Radio Canal Sur he started digital distribution of live and recorded content sorted by program, date and topic, while the CanalTrans.com site started streaming two podcasts in one digital platform through its website, according to specialized technology publications.

But the rise of this modality began in February 2004, when the journalist specialized in the Internet Ben Hammersleyfrom an English newspaper Guardhe invented and published in the article the English word “podcast”.

In August of the same year, a program based on the RSS format (a technology used to distribute content on the web) was built into this sound system, which enabled the inclusion and management of attached audio files and improved usability iPod devices to store and listen to podcasts.

Entrepreneur Adam Curry and programmer Dave Winer, who are credited with the invention and principle of ‘podcasting’, intervened in this progress related to the RSS format, according to the International Podcast Day platform (https://internationalpodcastday.com), dedicated to the International “Podcast” Day, which is celebrated every September 30.

“Podcasts” got their initial impetus from fans producing their own special interest programs, but their biggest takeoff came in mid-2005, when Apple’s iTunes online store added tens of thousands of podcast files to its offering. audio of this type, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.