April 28, 2025 (Updated )
As of March 2025, there were more than 6.5 million podcasts on Spotify alone. That’s a lot, and the medium is ever-growing, with just over 20 per cent of UK adults now listening to at least one podcast a week — that’s 11.7 million people. Some may say the industry is saturated, but there’s actually never been a better time to join, whether you come from an audio background or are new to the field.
Brett Spencer is a senior lecturer and director of the Centre of Podcasting Excellence at City St George’s, University of London, who created the Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo Film Review podcast for BBC Radio 5 Live and, more recently, In Detail: The Toxic Waste Scandal for BBC Sounds. He says: “The younger audience is declining in terms of radio all the time, but the younger podcast audience is increasing.”
What is it that makes them so popular? “Podcasting is providing a whole different range of news and entertainment and content for a generation that wants it on demand, rather than it being a more linear fashion,” he explains.
It’s one of the reasons that City, one of the UK’s leading journalism departments, set up their MA in Podcasting in 2023 to help prospective podcasters find their feet.
Hannah Grieve, a 28-year-old student on City’s Podcasting MA and Goalhanger Podcasts Bursary recipient, agrees. She says that it is the intimacy of podcasts that makes the medium so special:
“It’s a very one-to-one type thing, and I personally really like that. But I think it’s also the structure of our lives now. I think they’re the most accessible way to consume content, so people listen to it when they’re washing up, when they’re cooking, when they’re driving and stuff, and when they’re commuting, whereas you can’t really do that with other content.”
Brett Spencer (L), senior lecturer and director of Centre of Podcasting Excellence at City St George’s, University of London, and Hannah Grieve (R), MA Podcasting student and Goalhanger Podcasts Bursary recipient.
In the manner of how radio presenters were once the kitchen company of the nation, podcast hosts accompany their community throughout their day, all while providing on-demand entertainment to fill those quiet moments. But, how does a podcast creator find their community in the first place?
Podcasting is a uniquely democratised medium; anyone with a microphone can start a podcast, upload it to the internet, and make it successful if they have nailed their unique selling point. But, with the market overflowing with options for audiences to consume (to repeat, there are over 6.5 million podcasts on Spotify alone), how can creators make their project stand out to potential listeners and convince them to stick around for more?
“Podcast audiences aren’t instant,” says Brett, saying that you have to find “a gap in an interest” where you can start something and watch it grow. He cites a podcast called The 98% as a good example. The podcast, which was created by actors Alexa Morgan and Katie Elin-Salt, shares stories of the struggles in their industry while focusing on the commonality of trying to succeed in a prestigious occupation. “That’s a really novel idea they’ve built a massive community around.”
It is important not to chase podcasts that are already successful and aim to create something new. In Brett’s opinion, there are three key factors that creators should keep in mind when starting their own podcast: “You need a great idea, obviously. [You] need to know who the audience is for that idea, how to target your audience for that idea. Then, you need to know how to make that idea good enough that the audience wants to keep listening and build a community around it.”
Students on the course all benefit from City’s industry connections, with guest speakers including experts from the likes of broadcasters like the BBC and podcast production companies Goalhanger and Spiritland.
“At the end of term, we have an event called Podpitch where [students will] get a chance to pitch their final ideas to a whole panel of commissioners,” says Brett of how MA students are set up for success. “They get to actually experience what it’s like to be in the room and pitch their ideas to a proper commissioning panel.”
As part of the Change Makers Programme, prospective students of the MA in Podcasting can apply for a scholarship or bursary from a partner organisation to support their studies. The Spotify Podcast Scholarship provides £25,000 to cover tuition fees and living costs of a student from an underrepresented community, while the Goalhanger Podcast Bursary gives £5,000 to a student in need of financial support.
It is also vital to clarify the format which you are going to use to anchor your podcast around. Will you be telling other people’s stories or interviewing guests? Are you the main character, or will you have a co-host to bounce ideas off? The more specific you get early on, the more robust your concept.
If you’re going to start a podcast, you’re going to need a good microphone, a pop filter, and — if you’re a stickler for audio quality — an audio interface. There are many affordable options available which can easily be plugged into your computer.
One of the priorities of City’s MA in Podcasting is to get students up to speed on industry-standard hardware and audio editing software, such as Adobe Audition — all of which students get access to as soon as they start the course. Chloe Sackur, a current student on the course, recalls how being thrown in at the deep end benefited her in the long run.
“On our first day, we were literally handed recorders and told, ‘right, spend your lunch hour going out and vox-popping people’,” she says. “And then you can, you know, learn to edit those.”
While the MA in Podcasting sits within their journalism department, many who enrol on the course are mature students who have not had formal journalism training or worked in the industry at all. Chloe worked in publishing for 17 years, where she commissioned children’s and young adult fiction, but was driven by a desire to see what new skills she could learn. “Compared with six months ago, I have acquired so many different skills that I thought would take forever to learn.”
Max’ed Aadan, 32, is also a student who was looking for a career switch. He feels that the diversity of the MA in Podcasting cohort is a strength when it comes to their collaborative projects. He says:
“A lot of us are mature students. There’s a handful under the age of 26, but most people are 26 and over. We have a couple of people in their 40s and 50s. It’s a really good environment, because you get such a breadth of experience from their lives and their previous working life and education, that I think it’s made the experience of making things together so much more interesting.”
Production is key when researching and recording a podcast. Without a carefully considered structure, an episode can quickly unravel into a feature-length voice note. Take the time to consider the format of your podcast project and the potential ways you can communicate narrative within that.
“In the first term, there is quite a lot of theory to start off with, about what makes a good story and teaching us different forms of storytelling,” says Max’ed of how City’s MA in Podcasting emphasised the importance of story. “But then very quickly, it gets redirected into something practical where you then have to go and demonstrate that yourself, and practice and kind of experiment with it.”
Hannah agrees: “We’ve looked at all different ways to tell stories and how to structure episodes across series, and how you can really be emotive in your storytelling and create the most powerful story.
“The stories are always at the heart of the content,” she adds. “When you boil everything down, that is the thing that’s going to be most important.”
With the MA in Podcasting being part of City’s Journalism department, a module in UK Media Law is compulsory so students can be aware of what can or cannot be shared in multimedia, how to best conduct research and ethically deal with sources, especially when working without the support of a team around them.
Max’ed Aadan (L), recipient of the Spotify Podcast Scholarship, and Chloe Sackur (R) are both mature students on City St George’s MA in Podcasting.
Just as with any kind of journalism, it is vital that podcast creators be as informed as possible when working within media law, especially when dealing with sensitive subjects. For those just starting out, a copy of McNae’s Essential Law for Journalists can be a good starting point. Often, it’s about knowing when to call in the experts, rather than knowing all the answers yourself.
Even though it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of the creative process, it’s important to remember to treat your podcast project like a business from day one. At the end of the day, unless you are approaching podcasting from a hobbyist perspective, then you need to treat your podcast like a job, from establishing your target audience, to networking, to branding yourself.
Max’ed says that it’s vital to determine the validity of a podcast concept before launching it out in the real world. “You have to come up with a business case. You have to do all the research required and figure out what’s going on in the market: why that? Why is there a space for the podcast you are trying to pitch?” He adds that it all “feels reflective of the industry”.
The importance of getting your work out there cannot be underestimated, and in the past few years, the rise of video in the podcasting space has been undeniable. But, as Hannah rightly points out: “Video podcasts are very great for marketing, but obviously they literally double the workload.”
And while video podcasts offer an alternative experience for listeners (or viewers), promoting the podcast has increasingly become reliant on vertical video as a marketing tool across social media channels. Grabbing as many clips as possible when conducting an interview will make sure you have options later on.
Despite recognising that he found it “a bit daunting to start using social media again”, Max’ed found the ‘Social Community and Multimedia Management’ module helpful in learning how to develop a professional social media presence and get you “out of your comfort zone”.
If you are looking to record an interview, edit a podcast, create social assets, and then publish it, Brett says “you are describing a lot of work. It is important to be realistic about what you can achieve on your own and try not to stretch yourself too thin in the beginning. Most podcasters are doing at least three jobs on a podcast, the rest are probably doing ALL of it”.
The same can be said for monetisation of your podcast – are adverts generating more revenue than subscriptions or discount codes? Fortunately, Brett says that you do not always need to have a massive audience in order to monetise your work.
“Even if [you’re] within a niche, find somebody in that niche to sponsor that podcast. You can still make money. You don’t necessarily have to have huge numbers if you’ve got a niche podcast that is reaching the right audience.”
“There’s a component of it where they teach you how to analyse publishers or podcast products to understand, okay, what is it that they do really well and how do you think they’ve developed an audience?” says Max’ed, who is also the recipient of the Spotify Podcast Scholarship. “Where do you think they’ve fallen short? What could they do to improve?”
By analysing the competition most comparable to your own product, you can see what a similar community are connecting with and what they are not in a low risk fashion before putting time and effort into creating similar products or assets.
All projects come with challenges, and this is where the power of community is key.
Brett adds: “The thing with podcasting is, the more you can make it a two-way experience and involve the audience, the more you will grow it because the more people will tell other people about it, and the more the social will bring people in.
“Making a podcast is only 50% of the job. The other 50% is getting someone to listen to it.”
He reinforces the importance of giving listeners multiple means of supporting you, whether that be through subscribing through Patreon, selling merchandise, or affiliate discounts with advertisers.
But for Max’ed, the key factor is staying consistent. “Some of the biggest podcasts in the world, in whatever genre, are big, because they put in the work.
He continues: “Podcasting is a habit forming exercise. If people get used to you being there Mondays and Wednesdays and then all of a sudden you’re not, they’ll forget that because there’s millions of podcasts out there. What you want to do is you want to fold into people’s lives.”
If you want to find out more about how to have a successful career as a podcaster creator you can attend an open evening at City – view upcoming dates.
