Report: Comedy is the Number One Genre for Podcasts

RADIO ONLINE | Wednesday, October 26, 2022 | 12:17pm CT

NPR and Edison Research

NPR and Edison Research will release its fourth annual Spoken Word Audio Report this week and is offering a sneak peek at a bit of data regarding podcasts. Using Edison Podcast Metrics, it looked at the podcast consumption among weekly podcast listeners in the U.S. In the graphic below, you can see percentage of 18-24-year-old weekly podcast listeners who have listened to podcasts of a certain genre in the last week. The column on the right shows the same data for weekly podcast listeners age 25+.

Comedy is number one for both groups, but has a dramatic lead among those age 18-24. Sixty-two percent of weekly podcast listeners age 18-24 reported listening to a Comedy podcast in the last week, with Society & Culture finishing a distant second at 24%. True Crime charts in third place at 20% followed by News at 13%, and a tie between Sports and Education, both at 9%.

For those age 25+, the top two genres are much closer in reach with 39% listening to a Comedy podcast in the last week, followed by 31% listening to News podcast in the last week. Society & Culture ranks third at 27%, True Crime in fourth place at 19%, and a tie between Sports and Business, both at 11%.

Most of the genres on these two lists are the same, however not all #1 ranks are created equal, and comedy far outpaces the next closest genre as the favorite among those age 18-24. News gets a more prominent place among the older group, and Business replaces Education for the older group as well.

The webinar on Thursday, October 27 will take palce at 2pm ET and will feature Lamar Johnson, VP of Sponsorship Marketing at National Public Media and Megan Lazovick, Vice President at Edison Research.