Audio Series: The New Frontier of Entertainment A recent report highlights the latest trends reshaping the entertainment landscape: the meteoric rise of Audio Series.

A recent report highlights the latest trends reshaping the entertainment landscape: the meteoric rise of Audio Series. This innovative entertainment medium is capturing audiences worldwide, promising a significant shift in digital consumption habits. Emerging from the digital evolution that saw the rise of audio streaming, podcasts, and audiobooks, Audio Series have become widely popular.

This format, emerging almost two decades after audio streaming began in 2001, capitalizes serialized audio fiction's growing appeal. Here are some significant findings that emerged from the report:

1. In 2023, the total addressable opportunity for global Audio Series market is estimated at US$ 21-25 billion, with projections suggesting a doubling in value by 2027, marking a substantial opportunity in the digital consumption landscape.

2. Over the last 2 years, adoption of audio series accelerated across developed and emerging market, led by India and US.

3. Globally, the market is growing at a CAGR of ~640%, implying an over 40X growth between 2021 and 2023. Although it is relatively nascent as an entertainment format, Audio Series is garnering ~2X the engagement of music globally and is nearing that of Video Streaming which is currently the highest in the Media and Entertainment sector. With a growing degree of user maturity, engagement on Audio Series platforms is also seen to increase.

4. Users in early adopting markets like India started out by spending 1.3 hours per day on the platforms and wound-up dedicating as much as 1.5 hours per day just a year into their listening experience.

5. Factors such as content quality, variety, and flexibility in listening times are making the format more accessible to users. While users have expressed satisfaction across multiple parameters including personalized recommendation tools, there is demand for better pricing and flexible payment options.

6. Audio series in India currently enjoy an NPS of 55% with 63% of the listeners identifying as Promoters and only 8% as detractors. Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Pocket FM report the highest sentiment score built on customer satisfaction and a positive experience with newer formats.

7. The Audio Series landscape currently has 10-11% of paid users in India in the year 2023, with micropayment packs fueling the growth of this demographic. Although this demographic is currently limited owing to the nascency of the format, paid user penetration is almost on par with that of its counterparts in OTT Video in India. Micropayment facilities bring in an element of affordability while allowing users to only pay for the content they consume instead of the library at large. However, users are also seen to demand payment options for longer durations as evidenced by subscriptions increasing from 5% at the beginning of platform usage to 13% by the end of the second year of platform usage.

8. The total addressable users for Audio series in India is expected to grow from 350 Mn users in 2023 to 540 Mn users by 2027. The democratization of the creator visibility and selection process strengthens the supply-side pipeline with ample incentive for creators to innovate and experiment with genres. Platforms also enjoy a unique business model wherein creators can access a large community of enthusiasts with minimal spending and multiple avenues for creator monetization including revenue-sharing and lump-sum payment. Economies of scale would prevail in the audio series with only an incremental cost increase owing to the dependence on the creator ecosystem for content production and procurement.

Source: Ear-It-All: The Booming World of Audio Series" by Redseer Strategy Consultants