There is no doubt that ‘audio’ is having its moment. In the Spoken Word Audio Report, released by National Public Media, 43% of Americans listen an average of two hours daily to word audio, with spoken word’s share of audio increasing by 30% over the last six years!
North Americans are trending away from videos, images, and music and turning to audio-based sources. The meteoric rise in popularity of podcasts has fueled this trend, but the desire for text-to-audio content also reflects the reality of busy lives and too much screen time.
The desire for less screen time and more audio-based options was already trending before the pandemic disrupted how we work and live, but it has certainly been amplified since the pandemic. People spend so much more time in front of a screen and don’t have much opportunity for social interaction, so it’s natural that we’re hungry for spoken-word content.
Newsrooms and self-published authors are realizing the power of spoken news, and news organizations from New York Times to Apple News are but a few examples of established brands pivoting to audio. It’s only been recently that smaller publishers and independent journalists or authors have the option of jumping on the text-to-audio bandwagon. There is no reason that smaller publishers can’t participate in text-to-audio translations of their written content.
Ad-Auris has just launched a suite of narration tools directed at independent publishers, giving them the option to customize their text-to-audio from instant narration to high-production audio stories. Publishers can control their audio content and deepen audience engagement.
For anyone who publishes content to Substack or distributes personalized newsletters, there is no better time to enhance your written content by offering your audience the option to engage with an audio version.