背景介绍：
播客一词诞生于2004年，是由“iPod”和“Broadcasting”两个词拆分结合而来。简单来说是一种用户自行生产的在线音频内容。2014年芝加哥电台《This American Life》旗下的罪案类非虚构节目《Serial》一炮而红，成功将播客带入大众视野。如今播客在国外发展较为成熟，内容形式广泛，涉及叙事类、新闻调查类、虚构类、真实犯罪类等，用户基数庞大、商业变现模式清晰。作为舶来品，播客目前在国内比较小众，众多音频平台都瞅准了这条人迹罕至的小道，摩拳擦掌抢占先机。那么，你听过播客吗？
Podcasts got
their name 20 years ago this month
二十年前的二月，播客这个名字诞生了
A once-fringe
medium has gone mainstream, but many wonder what the future holds
曾经的边缘媒体已经成为主流，但许多人想知道未来会怎样
In February 2004 Ben Hammersley, a British journalist,
noticed a new kind of digital media: “downloadable radio” produced by geeky
amateurs or public broadcasters. Mr Hammersley suggested a few names for it.
Fortunately “audioblogging” and “GuerillaMedia” did not catch on. But a third
did: podcasting, a
portmanteau
of “iPod” and “broadcasting”.
2004年2月，英国记者本·哈默斯利注意到了一种新型数字媒体：由极客业余爱好者或公共广播公司制作的“可下载的广播”。哈默斯利给它起了几个名字。还好，“音频博客”和“游击媒体”这两个名字没有流行起来。但是第三个名字火了：播客，一个由“iPod”和“broadcasting”组成的合成词。
At a tech conference the next year, Steve Jobs, Apple’s
boss, asked how many people in the audience had heard of podcasting, which he
described as “‘Wayne’s World’ for radio”. Not a single person raised their
hand.
在次年的一次科技会议上，苹果公司的老板乔布斯问听众中有多少人听说过播客，他形容播客是“广播界的‘反斗智多星'”。没有一个人举手。
But today, 20 years after they got their name, podcasts are mainstream. Around 43% of American internet users and 30% of Britons listen to at least one a month (including some from The Economist).
但是今天，播客这个名字诞生20年之后，它成了主流。大约43%的美国网民和30%的英国网民每月至少听一次播客（包括本刊发布的一些）。
You can open Apple, Spotify and, increasingly, YouTube to find some 4m shows by everyone from ex-convicts to duchesses. Podcasting has turned anyone with a microphone into a talking head who can talk straight into people’s earbuds.
你可以打开 Apple 播客、Spotify 以及越来越多地从 YouTube 上找到大约400万个节目，主播形形色色，从公爵夫人到前科犯什么人都有。有了播客，只要有麦克风，你就能成为在别人耳机里说话的主播。
Like butt-dialling and doom-scrolling, the podcasting
boom was facilitated by the smartphone. The iPhone was released in 2007; the
first standalone podcast apps came out between 2010 and 2012.
和不小心自动拨出了电话以及狂刷坏消息停不下来这些现象一样，这股播客繁荣也是智能手机带来的结果。iPhone 于2007年发布，而第一个独立的播客应用出现在2010年到2012年之间。
In 2014 “Serial”, a binge-worthy investigation into the botched murder trial of a teenager in Maryland, arrived; it was the first show to gain attention in mainstream American culture. (The first season has been downloaded more than 300m times.) The number of monthly podcast listeners in America doubled in the five years after 2014.
2014年一档名为《连载》的播客节目横空出世，讲述了对马里兰州一桩青少年谋杀案拙劣审判的调查，很值得一口气听完，是第一个获得美国主流文化关注的播客。（第一季的下载量已超过3亿次。）2014年之后的五年间，美国每月收听播客的人数翻了一番。
Since “Serial”, podcasting has been in a
“hyper-charged, hyper-capitalist, hyper-speculative period”, says Nicholas
Quah, a podcast critic. Tech companies
swooped in
, such as Spotify, which was
hungry for new customers and audio content it could have royalty-free. (Spotify
has invested $1bn in podcasting since 2018.)
播客评论家尼古拉斯·奎阿说，自《连载》出现以来，播客便处于“高度兴奋、高度资本主义、高度投机的时期”。科技公司蜂拥而至，比如渴望获得新客户和免版税音频内容的 Spotify。(自2018年以来，Spotify 已在播客上投资了10亿美元。）
But last year—cue the “record scratch” sound effect—the
music stopped. Economic headwinds were one factor. But advertisers and
investors also realised that they know relatively little about how many people
actually listen to podcasts: “downloads”, the standard industry metric for
engagement, do not always equate to listening.
但到了去年——此处应配上“刮擦唱片”音效——音乐戛然而止。经济逆风是一个原因。但广告主和投资者也意识到，他们对实际上有多少人收听播客知之甚少：“下载量”——衡量用户参与度的标准行业指标——并不总是等同于收听量。
Spotify
eliminated
200 podcasting jobs; others followed suit. Many well-regarded shows were cancelled, including “Stolen”, which won the Pulitzer prize for audio journalism in 2023. Podcasters learned that “excellence won’t save you”, says Neil Verma, a media-studies scholar.
Spotify 在播客部门裁员200人，其他公司也纷纷效仿。许多备受好评的节目被取消，包括2023年获得普利策音频报道奖的《被盗》。媒体研究学者尼尔·维尔马表示，播客主播们认识到“节目做得棒并不能拯救你”。
Although producers are struggling to turn a profit,
podcasting is in the ascendant. Advertising spending and listening time are
predicted to rise. But the medium “is growing in a direction that is hard for a
lot of the podcast originalists to accept”, says Ariel Shapiro, who writes Hot
Pod, an industry newsletter.
虽然制作人还在为实现盈利犯愁，但播客仍处在上行通道中。预计广告支出和收听时长还会增加。但行业简报《热门播客》的作者艾莉儿·夏皮罗表示，这一媒介“正朝着许多播客原教旨主义者难以接受的方向发展”。
What does the future hold? Some think the future of
podcasting lies in video. Many podcasts, including a talk show hosted by Joe Rogan, the most popular podcast globally,
now employ video to increase their audience. “We will be watching podcasts, we
will be skipping chapters of podcasts, and you will be commenting on them at
the end,” predicts Will Page, Spotify’s former chief economist.
未来会怎样？有些人认为播客的未来要走向视频。包括乔·罗根主持的全球最受欢迎的脱口秀在内的许多播客现在都用视频来吸引更多听众。“我们会观看播客，跳过它们的一些章节，在结尾处发表评论。”Spotify 的前首席经济学家威尔·佩奇预测说。
Betting that some people want visual entertainment
while listening, Spotify started supporting video podcasts in 2020. Already the
black microphone icon has become
omnipresent
on YouTube and TikTok, functioning
as a visual signal for podcast-like straight talk. Video will help podcasts’
further spread; rarely does audio alone go viral.
Spotify 认定有些人想在听节目的同时享受视觉娱乐，从2020年开始支持视频播客。在 YouTube 和 TikTok 上，黑色麦克风图标已经无处不在，表明这是像播客那样畅所欲言的视频节目。视频将有助于播客的进一步传播；单靠音频很少能大火。
Whatever happens to the industry, its impact on audio storytelling
will endure. Podcasts offer something traditional formats often work hard to
leave out, but which, as trust in media has fallen, audiences crave:
transparency. Instead of formal interviews, listeners get sprawling conversations.
无论这个行业发生了什么，它对音频叙事的影响会持续下去。播客提供了一种传统媒体形式常常极力排除的东西：透明度。而随着人们对媒体信任度的下降，他们越发渴望透明度。听众听到的不是正式的采访，而是信马由缰的漫谈。
Instead of radio features measured in minutes, listeners are led through whole investigations over hours. “In exposing the vulnerabilities of the reportorial process, the news product becomes more credible and trustworthy,” writes David Dowling in “Podcast Journalism”, a forthcoming book. Podcasts often set out to explain things—and they always end up explaining themselves.
不同于以分钟为单位的广播节目，听众花几小时在主播的带领下了解整个调查过程。戴维·道林在即将出版的《播客新闻学》一书中写道：“通过把报道过程中的漏洞弱点直接呈现给受众，新闻产品变得更加可信可靠。”播客常常是为了解释什么事情而制作的——但最终却总是在解释自己。
portmanteau
[
ˌ
p
ɔ
rt
ˈ
mænto
ʊ
] n. 混合的；混成的
