culture
Once a niche hobby, on-demand audio shows you can download or stream have grown into a medium with hundreds of millions of listeners worldwide.
Podcasts are the correct term because they are episodic audio programs made available for listeners to stream or download whenever they choose, rather than being broadcast live at a scheduled time like radio. This on-demand nature let podcasts grow from a niche hobby into a mainstream medium, as streaming platforms invested heavily in exclusive shows featuring celebrities, journalists, and comedians to attract subscribers.
Newsreels were short filmed news summaries shown in cinemas decades before television, an entirely different, now-extinct medium. Ringtones are simply short audio clips played when a phone rings, unrelated to long-form spoken content.
Podcasting's rise was helped by how cheap it is to start one: anyone with a microphone and free hosting software can publish a show, which is part of why the medium's variety and total number of shows exploded so quickly.
culture
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