With 660,000 shows and 62 million listeners already, the century’s first new art form is about to enter its corporate stage. New York’s March 18–31, 2019, issue cover package explores the podcasting moment, with Adam Sternbergh on the rise of podcasts and how they first learned to speak; Boris Kachka on how capitalism has come for podcasts, and whether we’re in a bubble; a 100 podcast syllabus; what the future of podcasting is going to look like; and more.
“No matter what subject you’re interested in, however weird or niche, you can find a podcast about it, or probably a few,” says New York’s culture editor Lane Brown. “Naturally this means investors are excited, too: Spotify recently acquired podcast company Gimlet Media for $230 million, and the start-up Luminary wants to be ‘the Netflix of podcasts’ and is spending money accordingly, all of which has some worried we might be in a bubble. But for listeners, this is a great time to put on a pair of earbuds and feed your obsessions.”