Last year, we launched the inaugural Podcast Trends Report. The report gave us incredible insights into what podcast fans are actually like, how effective podcast advertisements are, and the challenges and trends facing podcasters today. We’re proud to announce the second-annual version of this report today. Comparing the year over year analysis, combined with a few different questions, gives us a peak into the growth and challenges of listener behavior.

The Podcast Trends Report 2018 was compiled after surveying 1,156 podcasts fan, 368 of whom are podcasters themselves. While other reports, most notably The Podcast Consumer by Edison Research, provide yearly benchmarks into how and where podcasts stand in the greater population, The Podcast Trends Report offers further insight by only segmenting podcast fans. I like to think of the report as a double-click drill down of The Podcast Consumer — how long are people listening for, which apps are they using, which categories are the most popular, and more. These insights combined with survey analysis of actual podcasters make this report unique.

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

  • 76.8% of people listen to podcasts for more than 7 hours each week.
  • 61.2% of respondents spend more time listening to podcasts than watching TV.
  • 48.8% of respondents said they purchased an item after hearing it advertised on a podcast.
  • 57.4% of podcasters list marketing and building an audience among their top challenges.

61.2% of respondents spend more time listening to podcasts than watching TV

I’m constantly fascinated by how podcasts fit into the wider content world. With the proliferation of the internet, endless forms of content have become ubiquitous. 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. In last year’s report, this number was (a still impressive) 55.7%.

What this tell us: podcasts fans like podcasts …. a lot. Podcast fans spend more time listening to podcasts than nearly any other forms of content.

76.8% of people listen to podcasts for more than 7 hours each week

This number last year was 66.8%. Coinciding with the metric in the previous paragraph, podcast fans continue to spend even more time listening to their favorite shows. 20.1% of respondents listen 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.

48.8% of respondents said they purchased an item after hearing it advertised on a podcast

With how easy it is to simply skip podcast ads (and the lack of listener analytics), advertisers might fear their paid-for messages aren’t getting heard. This report quantitatively refutes that assumption and even goes a step further giving marketers a rudimentary conversion benchmark. Out of our respondents, 85.8% listen to podcast ads and 87.9% say ads are effective. Efficacy, however, is ultimately measured in return on investment and for the majority of ads in the current landscape, this means direct response. Put more simply: are people buying our product?

The Podcast Trends Report shows 48.8% of respondents have purchased an item after hearing it advertised on a podcast. This same question was asked last year and 40% had made a purchase. It’s relatively easy to connect the dots between the three metrics outlined here. People are spending more time listening to podcasts than ever before and this added time is exposing them to more advertisements which is resulting in more sales.

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

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The Insane Growth of Podcasts Introducing Podcast Madness 2018 Podcast Madness 2018 — Elite Eight
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