Reporting strong results across the board in a quarterly earnings release earlier in the year, the music streaming giant Spotify gave a special mention to an entertainment trend which has really taken off recently. In a letter to shareholders it wrote: "We have seen early indications that our investments in podcasts are having a positive impact on conversion of free to paid users". Spotify isn't the only company to see the benefits of the medium, either.
As the latest data from Podtrac shows, publishers are pulling in huge audiences from around the globe with their podcast content. In October alone, iHeartRadio had 266 million unique downloads and streams, while NPR hit 219 million.