According to the findings of a new study from PodcastOne and Edison Research, 60% of super listeners—people who spend at least five hours a week listening to podcasts—view advertisers positively on their favorite podcasts, appreciating the support they offer. Nearly half of respondents, 44%, have a more positive opinion of a company when it is mentioned in a podcast they listen to.

One session at SIPA Annual 2019 June 3-5 in Washington, D.C., that already has my attention is How 3 Publishers Became Award-Winning Podcasters starring Joseph Coleman, director of content, Coleman Publishing, Lynn Freer, president, Spidell Publishing Inc. and Stephanie Williford, CEO, EB Medicine.

We should not be intimidated by podcasts (myself included). We should be excited. Get a good guest, ask questions for 2 or 4 or 20 or 38 minutes and put it out there. If you can keep it going, you can build up quite an archive.

I can't tell you the number of conversations I've had lately where someone recommends a podcast to me—The Weeds, The Moth, My Favorite Murder, Slate Political Gabfest. And the numbers back this up. According to Nielsen, the number of avid podcast fans has risen from 13 million in the fall of 2016 to 16 million in the same period of 2017 in the U.S.

According to a report last year by Edison Research and Triton Digital, the portion of the public listening to online radio (podcasts) continues to grow. In 2017, 61% of Americans have listened to online radio in the past month, while about half (53%) have listened in the past week. This is up from 57% and 50%, respectively, in 2016.