When podcasts become proxy battlefields, time to hit ‘mute’

THE C-suite already has your eyeballs, but now it wants your ears. Earlier this month, hedge fund Elliott Investment Management took its proxy fight with Southwest Airlines to the podcast world as it angled for shareholder support. Each episode of the podcast, called Stronger Southwest, would feature the one of eight board nominees that Elliott was trying to get on Southwest’s board.

Perhaps this was an inevitable waypoint on the medium’s soaring trajectory. Podcasts – once intimate and idiosyncratic – have been steadily turning a shade of corporate beige, evolving from niche audio spaces into prime-time platforms.

Last year, more than 144 million Americans listened to podcasts regularly. This year, podcast ad revenue in the US alone is projected to grow 12 per cent, surpassing US$12 billion. Worldwide, some 500 million podcast listeners are expected to tune in this year, almost doubling from 2019. The sector’s heavyweight, streaming firm Spotify, posted record quarterly profits in July, up 45 per cent from the year before.