Nota bene: for the sake of simplicity, assume I'm talking about audio podcasts. Video podcasts are cool, but a totally different ball game.
I spend more time in the average week listening to podcasts than consuming any other kind of media. (Music is the only medium that comes close.) Each aspect of podcasting seems to trump a certain other form of media.
Podcast episodes are stored locally on one's devices, so you don't need a active internet connection to listen. This is great for people on the go who don't want to pay for Canada's super-expensive mobile data.
The fact that podcasts are audio is a big one. One can listen while driving, flying, doing dishes, or fishing. They're the perfect way to consume content without having to dedicate everything that you do to making sure you don't miss something.
The only restriction of what kind of content is in a podcast episode is the licensing. If you're the owner of the content, you can release it in podcast form. I've listened to audiobooks, bands premiering their music, talk shows, and even audio dramas, like the old-time radio shows back in the day.
If something is serialized — assuming it's well-written and produced — it's much easier to get hooked. The use of cliffhangers and the delay before getting the next part of the story is one of the reasons why modern TV series are so popular. The same is true for podcasts. Because of the deliver mechanism, it's easy to listen at your own rate and when you want to.
Compared to the cost of producing a TV news spot, podcasts are cheap! For daily news shows, it's a very easy way to broaden their audience, and in most cases, you don't need to see the visuals anyway (unless you like watching talking heads). This also leads to my next point…
Podcasts aren't dependant on the size of their audience, so anyone can make one if they want to. To get something on national TV or radio, one needs to reach certain benchmarks to be deemed worthy of the airtime. With a podcast, you can enjoy both these huge, large-scale works as well as your brother's monthly comic book rundown with 20 listeners.
There's several other reasons why I like podcasts, but these are the key ones in my opinion. New to the world of podcasts but don't know where to start? Here's my favourites.