In the digital age, televisions, tablets, and mobile phones might easily upstage classic spoken-word storytelling in some households. But a growing medium may change that.
Over the past five years, podcast consumption has been on the rise. Now, podcast creators are tapping into a new market: storytelling for children.
One such podcasting network, Panoply Media, has released an app called Pinna that curates hours of original stories and series in podcast form, specifically for children ages four to 12.
The intention is to fill moments in the day – playtime, bedtime, quiet time, or during car trips, for example – in which visual storytelling has become commonplace.
“TV is kind of a passive medium, a lean-back medium,” Andy Bowers, Panoply’s chief content officer, told CTV News Channel in a video chat from New York on Friday.
“When a kid listens to any audio story . . . what they’re doing is making their own images in their head, they’re using their imaginations. It causes them to do some work, and it’s also really fun for them.”
Bowers adds that rather than modernizing storytime, podcasted stories are akin to the primitive way humans experienced storytelling – sitting in a communal setting, listening to stories, and using our imaginations to visualize.
Since the podcasting app’s release in October, the response from children has been no different than the response when experiencing traditional aural storytelling, Bowers says.
“The word that we’re hearing over and over again that the kids say after listening, is ‘again.’ ‘Again, play that story again,” Bowers told CTV News Channel.
“You know that from reading, when a kid loves a book they want to hear it again and again.”
