Podcast continue their rapid growth rate. How many podcasts are there? The last official count had confirmed over 750,000 podcasts on Apple Podcasts. However, we’ve heard there are over 1 million podcast RSS feeds. To properly quantify how popular podcasts are, here are the key podcasts statistics and podcast facts.
How Many Podcasts Are There?
In Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in 2018, the company said there were over 555,000 podcasts, including 525,000 active podcasts.
Apple also reported in June 2018 there were over billion downloads from Apple Podcasts.
However, an indexing tool counted over 800,000 podcasts on Apple as of December 2019.
In 2019, Google Podcasts product manager, Zach Reneau-Weeden tells Discover Pods there are around 2 million podcasts indexed by Google.
According to Nielson, 52% of podcast listeners use iOS, 43% are on Android.
Podcast Listener Stats
Key Stats from Edison Research 2019
- 70% of Americans aged 12+ are now familiar with the word “Podcasting.”
- 51% of Americans reported having listened to a podcast at least once in their lives.
- 32% of Americans report having listened to a podcast within the past month.
- The average number of podcasts consumed in the last week among weekly podcast listeners has stayed at seven
- More than half (53%) of monthly Spotify users aged 12-24 report being monthly podcast listeners, up 32% last year
- Podcasting grew slightly as the “audio source used most often in the car” — now at 4%, up from 3% last year.
Related reading: Takeaways from “The Podcast Consumer 2018” by Edison Research
- 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.
Where do people listen to podcasts
- Home (82%), in the car/truck (58%), and walking around/on foot (41%) were reported as the most popular podcast listening areas. (Edison Research, 2018)
- Commuting (78.5%), doing housework (65.4%), and free time (55.2%) were the most reported activities when people listen to podcasts. (The Podcast Trends Report, 2018)
How Much Money Do Podcasts Make?
- According to some calculations, The New York Times makes $4.4M, Wondery makes $77.8M, and This American Life / Serial make $2.6M. The same calculations estimate Tim Ferris earns $3M and Joe Rogan $16M.
- On Patreon, Chapo Trap House earns over $140k/month, True Crime Obsessed $54k, Last Podcast on the Left $55k, Cum Town $49k, and Tiny Meat Gang $52k.
- In 2017, Gimlet was on track to earn $15 million in revenue. (Recode)
- In 2018, The Ringer earned more than $15 million from podcast advertisements (WSJ)
- In 2017, the podcast advertising market was $314 million (IAB).
- Amy Schumer was reportedly given a $1 million deal to create a podcast for Spotify in 2018
- Pardon My Take earns an estimated $50,000 each episode (Washington Post)
- Barstool Sports made $15 million from 25 podcasts in 2018 (Digiday)
Podcast Acquisitions
| Company | Acquirer | Year | Price |
| Midroll | EW Scripps | 2015 | $50m |
| Stitcher | EW Scripps | 2016 | $4.5m |
| Stuff Media | iHeartMedia | 2018 | $55m |
| Gimlet Media | Spotify | 2019 | $230m |
| Anchor | Spotify | 2019 | $100m |
| Parcast | Spotify | 2019 | $56m |
| The Ringer | Spotify | 2020 | $250m |
| Cadence13 | Entercom | 2019 | $50m |
| Pineapple Street | Entercom | 2019 | $18m |
| Audiometric | Megaphone | 2015 | Unknown |
| Pop-Up Archive | Apple | 2017 | Unknown |
| Pocket Casts | Public Radio Consortium | 2018 | Unknown |
| Castro | Tiny Capital | 2018 | Unknown |
Popular Podcast Hosting Services
- SoundCloud (15.2%), Anchor (10%), Libsyn (8.5%), PodOMatic (6.8%), Podbean (5%) are the most popular podcast hosting platforms. (Chartable)
- Anchor (14.7%), SoundCloud (12.5%), Libsyn (9.5%), Podbean (7.2%), Spreaker (3.2%), Buzzsprout (2.9%) are the most popular hosting platforms for new podcasts. (Chartable)
- Libsyn (28.2%), Art19 (18.3%), SoundCloud (8.8%), Megaphone (8%) are the most popular hosting platforms for the top 400 podcasts. (Chartable)
Related reading: The 12 Best Podcast Hosting Services
What are you waiting for? Here’s our handy guide on how to start a podcast.
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