Podcasting fails to impress, claims Forrester

Podcasting is not attracting users, despite consumer awareness of the new form of content delivery, finds a new study by Forrester Research.

The research and analysis company found that while a quarter of all online consumers have expressed interest, only 1% of US households downloads and listens to podcast content.

Forrester projected that about 700,000 US households will listen to podcasts this year. This figure is expected to grow to about 12.3M by the end of the decade.

The study found that most consumers prefer to listen to existing content such as radio shows rather than content created exclusively for the internet.

A podcast of existing content has the advantage of enabling 'time shifting', allowing users to listen to a programme as they want. Sometimes there is no awareness that the content has been made available as podcast only.

Charlene Li, a principal analyst at Forrester, warned that companies should should not heavily invest in the technology at this point: 'Companies should not be dashing out to create expensive original content for a small audience unless they gain value from being seen as innovative.'

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