In a milestone for the podcast industry, a majority 53% of Americans aged 18 and older say they consume podcasts at least monthly. At the same time, the number of people who have never listened to a podcast – 26% – is down two points from a year ago. “It's really fully mainstream,” says partner Tom Webster, a partner at Sound Profitable, which released the data as part of its annual Podcast Landscape study.
The survey was conducted in June in a partnership with Signal Hill Insights among a online sample of 5,071 Americans aged 18 and older. That massive sample, the largest of any podcast research to date, has allowed for deeper insights into demographic listening habits. The report more notably shows that listening among non-Whites leads the way. It says that nearly two-thirds (63%) of Hispanics report listening to podcasts on a monthly basis, with higher averages also reported for Asian-Americans (62%) and Blacks (59%). Among Whites, 52% of those surveyed said they listened to podcasts monthly. “Black and Hispanic populations are significantly younger than the White population,” Webster said. “And it actually may be more of a function of age as much as anything.” He said that shows there is a “real opportunity” for podcasters to grow their reach among people 55 and older as 58% said they've never listened to a podcast.
After several years of rising listening levels among females, the latest data also shows a slight increase in male listening. During a Wednesday webinar, Webster said he believed the increase is due to several of the recent breakout hit shows having stronger appeal to men. The large sample size also allowed for an estimate of LGBTQ+ listening, which it pegs at 57% on a monthly basis.
Slower Pace Of Podcast Adoption
Overall, roughly three-quarters of Americans say they have listened to a podcast. That includes 37% of people said they had consumed a podcast in either audio or video format in the past week, and another 16% in the past month. Those numbers are fairly static with a year ago.
“It's a piece of evidence that growth in audience at the moment may be slowing or maybe hitting a temporary pause, because these numbers were pretty much statistically the same as they were last year,” Webster said. “I'm not prepared to go out and say that we have stopped growing, but I am prepared to say that it's time to really look at retention as much as we look at growth.” The good news is half of people who say they've ever listened to or watched a podcast say that they're now regular users of it.
The report finds that the mean number of hours people say they listen to podcasts is six hours, with 45% of those surveyed saying they spend more time with podcasting than a year ago compared to 17% that spend less time. The average number of shows they listen to is also up slightly, from 3.2 to 3.5.
But when the audience size remains the same, every new listener means a listener lost and that means podcasting is not immune to the forces of churn. The biggest reason people said they stopped listening was they lost interest in a show (25%) or the content became repetitive and stale (15%).
“They don't necessarily look for another podcast. We like to think that they do – but they don't,” Webster said. Their survey asked lapsed listeners why they stopped listening, not enough free time was a factor, but one in five (21%) said they “got tired of podcasts” and 16% say they couldn’t find a new show they liked. And when they were asked what would make them listen to podcasts again, more free time was tops (35%) – but nearly one in four (23%) said nothing could make them return to podcasting.
Webster said that is a wakeup call for the industry that it needs to look at how it is messaging the benefits of podcasting to listeners.
“What we need to do here at every level, is to remind people that the medium itself is unique and essential, that the medium itself gives you things that you do not get from other forms of entertainment,” he said. “They’re getting not a lean back activity, but a lean forward, engaging companion, friend, that they can take anywhere they go. That is unlike other types of media, and we need to really be talking about that.”
Making The Non-Listener A Listener
The survey finds a third of the 26% of Americans who say they never listen to podcasts are happy with their current media choices. And the industry is making inroads on another front as 13% say they cannot find any podcast that interests them – but that is down five points from 2018.
Webster said it is tempting to blame “discovery” for non-listeners, but he thinks the real sticking point is “inertia.” and in reality, the non-listener may not be as happy with their existing choices as they were a year ago and that offers podcasters a lever to pull by asking if they are tired of screens and finding nothing new on TV.
“I think that there is a percentage of the non-listener that looks at all the doom scrolling they're doing, all the TikTok they're watching, and they wonder if it is good for them,” Webster said. “We could do more here, not just to sell the benefits of podcasting, but maybe to make the ground underneath them a little bit more unstable.”
The study was conducted in partnership with Wondery, American Public Media, ESPN Podcasts, BetterHelp, SiriusXM Podcast Network, LibsynAds, Paramount, and NPR.
Download the Podcast Landscape HERE.
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