That the Italians are a people of great “talkers” is well known throughout the world. The news, if anything, is that very many, in these latitudes, in the last two or three years have decided to put their gab at the service of the web, building formats ranging from “Society & Culture” to “Comedy”, from “Lifestyle & Health »to« Arts & Entertainment », from music to« Education ». Italy turns out to be the republic of podcast, according to data from Spotify, the main streaming platform on the global market. And Start, the daily podcast of Il Sole 24 Ore, on Spotify is among the most listened to in the all news category.
A “library” of over 3 million podcasts
The picture emerges from «The State of podcasting», the latest Stream & greet organized by Spotify with the Italian press which saw the participation of Edu Alonso, head of the Studios of the platform for Southern and Eastern Europe. We start from the global picture and arrive at Italy. In the last year, the growth of publications has been dizzying: between September 2020 and 2021, about 1.5 million new podcasts were added on Spotify, an increase of 85% compared to the previous year. There are currently over 3 million podcasts available on the platform and, compared to 2018, the number of shows has increased by over 2,500 percent. Together with the offer, demand is also growing: just think that between January and September 2021, more than 84 million people in the world listened to a podcast for the first time.
Italy, the offer grows by 89%
Italy is among the countries that have shown the greatest growth in the offer of podcasts: Spotify has recorded an expansion of the catalog in Italian by 89% in the last year, with the production of new titles of all kinds and dedicated to the most disparate themes. The other markets where audio storytelling is growing the fastest are Taiwan, Colombia, Japan, Spain, Peru, India, Turkey, Philippines, France, Poland, Argentina and the Netherlands. In Italy the consumption of podcasts is increasingly transversal and cross-generational. Among the over 40s, Alessandro Barbero’s “History Lessons and Conferences” are popular, while the favorite show of Gen Z and Millennials is “Muschio Selvaggio” by Fedez and Luis Sal. The most listened to news podcast is Francesco Costa’s «Morning», while «Urban Demons» is confirmed as the most loved true crime and EdoBraa’s «Motivation and Personal Growth» ranks first in the Lifestyle & Health category.
Start in the Olympus of all news
Edu Alonso, among the initiatives launched in Italy, then focuses on “My Daily”, a playlist that combines the best news podcasts with music. And it is here that he mentions Start, the all news podcast of the Sole 24 Ore stable in Spotify’s top ten that excels among the proposals of «My daily». Then we talk about Sound Up, the global program aimed at supporting the production of original shows by aspiring podcasters who are part of underrepresented categories, in Italy open to women: so far there have been a thousand applications received. And so the focus is tightened on the four new “Original” formats launched by Spofity: “Biscottis, Internet Stories” by The Jackal, “UltràDelicious” by Maurizio Tentella, “All the times” by Camihawke and Alice Venturi and “Ikaros – The Wax Wings of Rock »played by Morgan. Because the podcast market in Italy is promising and Spotify has every intention of defending its leadership.