Closer to home, the new Podcast fever is not lost on Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.
APAC turned out to be a key adopter of podcasts. A 2019 study conducted by Australia’s Xtra Insights involving 3000 respondents aged 16-39 in eight APAC countries on perceptions of radio, music, and their general audio consumption habits highlighted the adoption of podcasts in the region. According to the Study Podcast penetration was deep across the region, “with close to three-quarters of the sample listening to podcasts.” Of those who used podcasts, 40% used it on a weekly basis. Even when it comes to programmatic revenue levels from podcasting, APAC shows a healthy rate.
“Podcasting makes up 25% of programmatic revenue in APAC, led by Australia and India. I predict this trend will continue and 2022 will be the year of programmatic for podcasting in APAC as the format grabs more attention from advertisers. A key market of interest in 2022 is Indonesia … In general, in nascent markets where podcasting is just developing — the reach, portability, long engagement time, and ‘bandwidth-friendly’ appeal of podcasts makes it an ad format to consider for all marketing plans and not just as a complimentary channel.”- Simon Lee, APAC Market Operations of Omnistudio, Australia
In Sri Lanka, due to the dominance of Radio stations as a source of audio provision, podcasts have not become mainstream as yet. Still, radio in Sri Lanka, as a medium, is gradually losing its popularity and has been criticized for being “advertising heavy”. This opens the way for growth of podcasts industry, which is nascent at present.
According to chartable.com and www.icharts.co.za/lk, the most popular Sri Lankan podcast is a comedy sketch, made right here in Sri Lanka. “Chooty Malli Podi Malli OntheGo” comedy radio show was started by Gaminda Priyaviraj and Suneth Chithrananda. This is followed by Dilshan Abeygunawardana’s “Dilshan’s Thoughts” society and culture related podcast another locally recorded podcast. Jay Shetty’s “On Purpose with Jay Shetty”, relating to Business, Health & Fitness, lists at third. A rising star in the list is “Muslim Central” by Omar Suleiman (Religion & Spirituality and Islam) which jumped 29 places recently, to arrive at the 9th spot on the list. Fearne Cotton’s “Happy Place” where she talks to incredible people about life, love, loss, and everything in-between, is a notable podcast rising to 24th spot by jumping 208 places. Podcasts.lk, a podcast aggregator, lists a comprehensive collection of made in Sri Lanka pods for browsing.
Start.io, a mobile marketing and audience platform active in the mobile app ecosystem, estimates Sri Lankan podcast listeners at a total of around 113,900. Two thirds of these listeners are in the age category of 25-34 years while 29% are in 18-24 yr age category. Thus, 97% of podcast audience is aged below 34 years. Males are almost the dominant gender following local podcasts at 93%. The leading carrier is Dialog Axiata, followed by Mobitel and Hutch.
(Podcast series concluded)
