Time.news – “I believe that one of the great strengths of audio entarteinment is that it is addictive, once you get used to listening to your podcast, your audiobook, you get used to that character and above all you get used to that narrating voice, you find it a little hard to give it up, you feel a bit orphaned. To me, who has sometimes forgotten my headphones and having to take a trip on the subway, those 20 minutes become very long because the subway is the moment in which I isolate myself and listen “to speak with the Time.news is Francesco Bono Director, Content Program IT / ES by Audible, a leading company in the world of audio entertainment that today unveils some very interesting data on the stratospheric growth of podcasts in Italy conducted by NielsenIQ.
And 7% increase in consumption compared to last year, confirming a positive trend that in the last 6 years has never stopped its run; 15.4 million Italians have listened to a podcast at least once in 2022, compared to 14.5 the previous year. “We have done 265 podcasts in these years – adds Juan Baixeras, Country Manager Italy & Spain – and we learned a lot about what the Italian user is looking for”.
Apparently the topics that most pique the interest of users in our country are true crime, scientific dissemination, foreign language courses and historybut one of the most interesting data is linked to the target: “67% of listeners are millennials, we have convinced the most difficult generation” says Baixeras satisfied, research tells us that that between 25 and 34 years is the age group with the highest share of “heavy users”, those who listen to podcasts every day.
“The reason for this success – explains Bono – is linked to the ease of access, the podcast allows you to be multitasking, in fact, the home is where you listen to the most, but ratings have also increased in other phases of the day, such as on public transport. The podcast has a very specific language, it is true – he continues – but also very simple to follow, it multiplies the expressive possibility, “Black as blood” for example, by Lucarelli and Picozzi, that two great authors, here is the same content on the page of paper would not have enjoyed the rhythm and the voices. Saviano’s podcast on the maxi trial gave an author like him the opportunity to exploit the potential of audio; hearing Buscetta’s statements or comparisons between the defendants in audio creates an immersion effect that gives an advantage ”.
Important, reliable brands, this too is certainly one of the secrets of Audible’s success in Italy in particular; always according to the research in fact the most listened to podcasts of 2022 are:
- Maxi by Roberto Saviano
- Nero Come il Sangue by Massimo Picozzi and Carlo Lucarelli
- Ugly Science Stories by Darkbeard X
- Deadly Podcast by Maccio Capatonda, Giovanni Maggi, Clemente Meucci, Valerio Desirò, Gualtiero Titta
- Nero Come l’Anima by Massimo Picozzi and Carlo Lucarelli
- The Great Battles in the History of Alessandro Barbero
- Dark by Pablo Trincia
- Clean Hands by Wil Media, read by Mia Ceran
- Seveso. The Chernobyl of Italy by Matteo Liuzzi and Niccolò Martin, read by Massimo Polidoro
- The Full. The Mechanic of Narcos by Matteo Caccia and Mauro Pescio
“We create an industry together with the Italian creative community, we convinced it to participate in this adventure from 2018 to today – explains Juan Baixeras – and it is an industry that employs many people, Italy is becoming one of the countries where podcast is listened to more ”. An industry that, as Francesco Bono adds, also assumes a social responsibility: “13% of Audible subscribers are not book readers, the audio is so universal and easy that it helps to bring to the world of culture and information many people who no longer set foot in a bookstore. If we think of successes that have had contents such as “12-12-69” on the Piazza Fontana massacre, such as “Seveso” which was one of the great surprises of this year, this shows how complex issues can be tackled thanks to the audio medium ” .
A bright future also for what concerns the horizons yet to be discovered: “The Sky Is Limit – explains Bono – one of the advantages of audio is that it has no production limits, transforming an idea into audio is easier than into video, this allows creators much greater freedom. Surely fiction development is a big trend so far podcasts have focused on genres that are golden strands, like true crime, disclosure… I expect that the choice of genres will expand. From a production point of view, there are many technological innovations that will bring new stimuli “.