Report: Five Things to Know About the Podcast Audience

RADIO ONLINE | Monday, January 11, 2021 | 4:42pm CT

Westwood One

Audio is a huge part of life for Americans. While AM/FM radio dominates the audio landscape with mass reach and significant time spent listening, podcasting is an area that has been experiencing significant adoption growth. Westwood One's Insights team posted highlights from the just-released Westwood One 2021 Audioscape on its blog, looking at podcast consumer trends using data from Edison's Q3 2020 "Share of Ear" Report.

• Podcast listeners love audio and want more of it: Compared to the average U.S. consumer, podcast listeners spend an astonishing +41% more time with audio.

• If you listen to podcasts, they are your number one audio platform: Among those that listen to podcasts, podcasting has the largest share of audio time spent (30%) followed by AM/FM radio (22%). Over the last five years, these ratios have held very consistent.

• The median age of the podcast audience is 34, younger than other media: The current median age of podcast listeners is 13 years younger than AM/FM radio and two decades younger than broadcast television network audiences.

• Podcast's share of time spent with spoken word is surging: Edison reports podcast listeners are twice as likely to listen to news compared to total audio consumers and three times as likely to listen to personalities and sports.

• Most podcast listening occurs at home throughout the day: 60% of all podcast time spent occurs at home, up from 58% in Q3 2018. 34% of all podcast time spent occurs 10am-3pm followed by 6-10am (22%) and 3-7pm (21%).