This year marks the third-annual Podcast Trends Report, which aims to provide insights into both listener behaviors and the challenges and priorities for podcasters. Each subsequent year we’re able to gain a better understanding of the landscape, mapping trends on a year over year basis.

The Podcast Trends Report 2019 was compiled after surveying 1,203 podcast fans, 234 of whom are podcasters. Other reports, namely The Podcast Consumer by Edison Research, do an excellent job benchmarking podcast growth among the general public, however we view the Podcast Trends Report as a drill down into this segment of the population to understand specific trends among the greater podcast community. This report understands the podcast app market, where people listen to podcasts and how long they’re listening for, the most popular categories, and more. These insights are also combined with a unique understanding of actual podcasters to know what they feel are the biggest challenges and priorities when creating their shows.

Though the report is full of interesting data, here are some statistics that jumped out at us:

  • 82.4% of people listen to podcasts for more than 7 hours each week.
  • 33.2% of respondents have listened to a podcast on a smart speaker.
  • 59% of respondents spend more time listening to podcasts than on social media.
  • 55.6% of respondents said they purchased an item after hearing it advertised on a podcast.
  • 61.3% of podcasters list marketing and building an audience among their top challenges.
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59% of respondents spend more time listening to podcasts than on social media

This is the third time we’ve asked the same question, where respondents choose if they consume other content types more or less than podcasts. The past two years, the splits were relatively even. It’s no surprise the vast majority of podcast listeners spend more time listening to podcasts than reading a newspaper. However, social media has always had a comfortable lead over podcasts, except this year. Did something change in the landscape? Did people get fed up the toxicity on Twitter?

From newspapers, to online publications, to blogs, to radio, to TV we have never had so many resources and content options to kill our time. This question was added to the report to understand how podcasts fit in with other media types.

While the social media split is interesting, the TV split continues to grow in podcasts’ favor. Last year 61% reported they spend more time listening to podcasts than watching TV. This year that number climbed to 66%.

82.4% of people listen to podcasts for more than 7 hours each week

Last year this number was 76.8% and the year before it was 66.8%. This year over year growth maps the increased time spent listening to podcasts nicely. This growth is not only substantial, but the entire podcast landscape should take notice. We also saw super-listeners grow with 22.4% listening to over 21 hours of podcasts each week, more than 3 hours per day.

With the growing popularity of listening at increased speeds or app features that remove silences, this added time allows podcast fans to cram even more podcasts into their days.

55.6% of respondents said they purchased an item after hearing it advertised on a podcast

This is a metric nearly every marketer should perk up to. Currently, direct response brands like Casper, Blue Apron, SimpliSafe, ZipRecruiter and others dominate the podcast advertising market. Why? Because with podcast analytics still in their relative infancy, these consumer-focused brands can easily measure the efficacy of their ad spends through promo codes and unique landing pages.

Only now are we just seeing larger companies focusing on branding (as opposed to direct response) like Coca Cola, Geico, State Farm, and others enter the podcast game. Think about the Super Bowl for ads … the Super Bowl. Very rarely do you see direct response ads similar to those prevalent on podcasts. Instead, Super Bowl ads focus on the brand, why you should buy this car, drink this beer, eat these chips, etc. That’s where the major dollars are spent.

So while the 55.6% stat is amazing and correlated to the ubiquity of direct response ads, brand marketers should heed this and view it as the next advertising frontier.

Below is the full report highlighting more of the key findings. If you’d like a direct PDF download, click here.

Related posts:

Announcing the 2018 Podcast Trends Report Podcast Trends Report 2018 Announcing the 2019 Podcast Trends Report
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