This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business News Media
AudioUK calls for more recognition of and support for UK podcast makers
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 21 November 2022
The boss of AudioUK – an organisation that represents independent audio production companies – last week used an event organised by the Westminster Media Forum to call for increased government support to help audio producers in the UK to capitalise on the podcasting boom.
Chloe Straw stated: “The global podcasting market is expected to grow at a rate of 31.1%, to reach $94.88 billion by 2028. The UK sector is currently one of the most developed in terms of numbers of companies and professionals involved in audio production. But this may only be for a period of time as other countries seek to build their own sectors”.
The AudioUK MD would like the government – and its Department Of Digital, Culture, Media & Sport – to reorganise the way it interacts with the audio production sector, which has traditionally been seen as part of the radio industry, but which has evolved a great deal with the rise of podcasting.
“At the most basic level, the current statistical groupings which DCMS uses to collect and report data do not include audio, just ‘radio broadcasting’”, she said. “And audio production is not represented on the Creative Industries Council, meaning a lack of input at that crucial strategic level”.
Beyond that, she would also like to see new support for the audio sector, in particular tax relief, to help the UK industry compete with an increasingly dominant US audio business.
“The US audio market has grown exponentially in terms of revenue and audience”, she noted. “So one economy is producing a lot of podcasts and driving its revenue generation and therefore it is limiting the international market and wider economic benefits”.
“A tax relief would allow a rebalancing of at least some of the production market power towards the UK”, she added, “through incentivising investors to look at this country’s production sector. There is already a whole suite of creative industry tax reliefs – film, TV, video games and animation – but not audio”.
We await to see if the government makes any moves in this domain.
