Podcasts were one of the few areas to have weathered the pandemic without sustaining ad spending losses.

Podcasting will continue on its upward trajectory: However, stakeholders will need to assess their priorities when it comes to advertising as fragmentation continues to present an interesting challenge.

Facebook lays out its social audio plan: The tech giant is taking on Clubhouse, but with the space getting more crowded and the buzz dying down, it may be difficult to succeed.

Tipping comes to Clubhouse: The social audio app will now let users tip hosts, likely a play to keep creators on the platform as they’re in danger of being poached by bigger players like Twitter and Twitch.

Clubhouse has buzz, but social audio isn’t as simple as it looks. The most promising marketing use cases are for thought leadership, virtual events, and influencer marketing.

LinkedIn joins the race against Clubhouse: The platform is the latest to announce its own live social audio feature. It could stand out in the audio wars by focusing more heavily on structured events like conferences and webinars, which would also help it attract B2B marketers.

Pandora outpaces Spotify for brand recognition in US

Digital audio has undoubtedly benefited from the UK lockdowns. Even with reduced commuting likely eating into their time spent with mobile audio, UK listeners still tuned in to digital audio elsewhere and will continue doing so.

It appears that Spotify’s podcast investments are paying off. For the first time, Spotify’s US podcast listenership will overtake Apple Podcasts’, according to eMarketer’s latest forecast. This year, 28.2 million people will listen to podcasts on Spotify at least monthly, while 28.0 million will listen via Apple Podcasts. Spotify has experienced significant growth in recent years; the company will grow 41.3% this year.

The pandemic led to many upward revisions of our UK digital user forecasts. Some changes (podcast listeners) will be permanent, while others will be temporary (digital gamers). Our social network user numbers, meanwhile, didn’t change much at all.

eMarketer analyst Blake Droesch, principal analyst Jeremy Goldman, and forecasting analyst at Insider Intelligence Peter Vahle discuss whether the Super Bowl delivered, what's fueling Spotify, how the podcast and social media worlds are blurring together, if reducing politics in the News Feed can help Facebook, why the shopping mall might make a comeback, what is the most relaxing song ever (statistically), and more.

Early in the pandemic, digital audio took a huge hit in user engagement and in the amount of time listeners were spending with the medium. Many observers, including us, predicted dire results in the short term. However, the rest of the year played out very differently than those early weeks, and we ultimately revised our 2020 estimate from a 1.0% decline in the time US adults spent with digital audio to 8.3% growth, for a total of 1 hour, 29 minutes (1:29) per day.

eMarketer principal analysts Jeremy Goldman and Jillian Ryan, along with junior analyst at Insider Intelligence Blake Droesch, discuss the work-from-anywhere future, how this years' Super Bowl will be unique, why some retailers are skipping returns, Spotify's emotion-based recommendations, what customers want from chatbots, the ideal length of time you should dunk your Oreo in milk, and more.

eMarketer principal analyst Jeremy Goldman, forecasting analyst Peter Vahle, and vice president of content studio at Insider Intelligence Paul Verna discuss Spotify's strategic positioning as a complete podcasting ecosystem. They then talk about how much time Americans spend on their phones during their lifetime, why Alexa's asking follow-up questions, and what we can expect from the new "Apple One" bundle.

TV ad spending takes a hit as marketers adjust their budgets amid a recession.

Programmatic podcast ad spending, which we are forecasting for the first time this year, is growing at a fast rate from a small base.

Amazon Music will increase its user base by 18.5% to 45.8 million this year, which represents 21.3% of digital audio listeners, according to our latest estimates. As it continues to invest and grow its audio strategy, we expect Amazon Music will surpass Pandora in monthly listeners by 2023.

The pandemic put pressure on media budgets and changed users’ listening behaviors, forcing advertisers to restructure their audio strategies.

Digital radio spending has declined during the pandemic, which is in line with reduced advertiser demand. We do, however, expect growth to rebound by 26.8% next year.