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Podcast industry in India: Opportunities for 2020
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Amit Doshi, Founder & CEO, IVM Podcasts expects to see many more brands to start seriously investing in integrations o...
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Podcast industry in India: Opportunities for 2020

Amit Doshi, Founder & CEO, IVM Podcasts expects to see many more brands to start seriously investing in integrations o...
  • 2020 is going to be a watershed for brands to enter audio. We have already seen a few mainstream brands do some experiments in 2019.
  • And this year, Amit Doshi, Founder & CEO, IVM Podcasts expects to see many more brands to start seriously investing in integrations on existing shows as well as in branded content initiatives.
  • He further walks us through the growth trajectory of podcasts and the future it holds in India.

‘The podcasting industry’ – a fancy word for a handful companies – in India, it is about to come of age. 2020 is the year where we are going to see the world of media consumption change in a significant way. Digital audio, which has so far been dominated by Music consumption, is poised to see talk content take off.

It's always been our contention at IVM Podcasts that people in India were suffering from a lack of content, i.e. supply. Once they discovered the medium audiences have been incredibly loyal and sticky.

In 2020 I see a few things playing out:

Explosive Growth in Audiences and Content

Podcasting has been a primarily English language, urban phenomenon in India so far. This is poised to change in 2020 and change in a dramatic fashion. As more people are looking at additional forms of digital content consumption, we will start to see more and more creators of regional language content emerge.

Even though its primarily English the audience growth is impressive, we more than tripled our audience base in 2019. When we supercharge this growth with application of programming in the languages people are most comfortable in, I believe we are at the bottom of that anticipated hockey stick.

Where have you been all my life?

For those of us who enjoy listening to podcasts it becomes one of the main ways we consume media. In the US a regular podcaster hears about 7 hours a week of podcasts. That’s an extraordinary number.

At IVM Podcasts we have done a few listener surveys and one of the main takeaways for me has been how recently people have started consuming podcasts and how big a part of their consumption diet it has quickly become. 85 % of our listeners heard their first podcast after 2015, and still the average number of podcasts consumed is over 7 a week.

New Platforms emerging and old platforms doubling down

We will see the emergence of new consumption platforms in 2020, whether its fresh new apps, smart speakers, internet connected car systems, smart exercise machines or something we cant even think of right now.

We will also see older platforms like OTT Music apps, OTT video apps, podcasting apps all start to double down on podcasting. The economic arguments for why a music app should look at podcasting seriously are well documented and still hold true in today’s environment. Now this is being validated across the world and we expect Indian platforms to follow suit.

Enter the Advertisers


2020 is going to be a watershed for brands to enter audio. We have already seen a few mainstream brands do some experiments in 2019. In 2020 I expect many more brands to start seriously investing in integrations on existing shows as well as in branded content initiatives.

Last year we had some great companies like Intel, Storytel, Accenture, Motilal Oswal, Aditya Birla Mutual Fund, PayTM Money and more start looking at the space. After their initial activities most of these brands have been pleased and want to intensify the association with the medium. Some of the best ad recall rates, and audience understanding of a complicated brand message were demonstrated through these campaigns, and we are excited to see more brands join in.

Enter the Corporates

I believe that one of the big drivers for the business is internal company podcasts. Podcasting is an incredibly intimate and authentic medium. I believe this solves a big problem at large organizations, where the rank and file typically do not have a great deal of access or insight into top managements thinking. As a way of setting culture, and passing company wide goals a regular short podcast to be deployed over a company intranet is going to be a gateway for many new listeners.

It has never been more exciting to be a part of this “industry” - to see what we have in front of us, we can feel the accelerating interest, we can see the audience growth.

- By Amit Doshi, Founder & CEO, IVM Podcasts