What the Golden Globes signifies for podcasting’s future

There was a time, not so very way back, when mentioning you labored in podcasting required a considerably defensive preamble about what podcasting truly is. There’s a TikTok development circulating that goes one thing like this: if you happen to can not clarify your job to a five-year-old or your grandmother, it doesn’t exist. Maybe 5 or ten years in the past, podcasting would have fallen squarely into that invalid class. Immediately, I really feel assured that my very own 81-year-old grandmother is aware of an ideal deal about podcasts.

This will likely learn flippantly, however these cultural markers matter. They’re small however vital nods to the truth that podcasting has matured right into a multi-billion-pound business – one which now instructions the eye of legacy media conglomerates, and, as of this 12 months, the Golden Globes.

Cultural legitimacy: From Hollywood to Westminster

The introduction of podcasting as a Golden Globes class in 2026 marks a watershed second for the business. It represents recognition from legacy Hollywood that audio can problem and drive narrative simply as compellingly as movie and tv. Admittedly, all nominees had been US-based exhibits, reflecting the relative maturity of the American market in comparison with the UK. However certainly a British legacy slot shouldn’t be far behind.

In a current episode of The Relaxation Is Leisure, Richard Osman joked that his OBE was in ‘providers to podcasting’ moderately than literature and broadcasting for which it was awarded. The quip was delivered with attribute off-hand levity – however is an OBE particularly for podcasting actually that far-fetched?

The providers rendered by the UK’s audio creatives to the cultural financial system are actually so vital that such an honour feels much less like a joke and extra like a formality ready to occur. Podcasting has ceased to be merely a distribution methodology for spoken phrase audio. It has advanced into a definite leisure class in its personal proper.

The business has additional cemented this validation. Because of the rigorous efforts of AudioUK – and an open letter that garnered signatures from over 400 podcasting and audio companies – the sector has formally secured a seat on the Inventive Industries Council (CIC). This isn’t ceremonial gesture; it implies that podcasting will likely be formally recognised as a core inventive business. It acknowledges that podcasting contributes to the UK economically, creatively, and culturally at scale.

For an business that germinated from the bottom up, these validations characterize the formalisation of a beforehand fragmented sector right into a recognised industrial pillar.

Podcasts on the Golden Globes – What subsequent?

If podcasting is now a class – outfitted with cultural cachet by way of the Globes and industrial infrastructure by way of the CIC – the main target shifts to what comes subsequent: permanence and expertise valuation.

We must always count on a land seize for the higher echelon of expertise. Not merely to host, however to construct. The business now gives a pathway to the sort of legacy beforehand reserved for stars of stage and display, and the market is waking as much as the worth of proudly owning the voices that command audiences.

Concurrently, the provision chain is professionalising. The unbiased producer stays, however scale calls for studio-level budgets, narrative rigour, and world distribution. If podcasting needs to take a seat alongside movie, tv, and music as a peer, it should construct the infrastructure to match.

Podcasting is embedding itself within the broader leisure financial system not as a disruptor, however as a foundational provider. The medium has moved from the margins to the mainstream, from passion to industrial pillar, and from quip to class. What subsequent certainly…

Picture credit: Gage Skidmore from Shock, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, by way of Wikimedia Commons / Canva Professional