Let's Talk About Podcasts

According to Bloomberg, only a few podcasts in the top 50 (“SmartLess,” “The Michelle Obama Podcast,” “Frenemies”) are less than two years old. And none of them are in the top 25.

🤔 What’s going on?... While the podcasting audience keeps growing – 57% of consumers say they’ve ever listened to a podcast, up from 22% in 2009 – the amount of new shows is actually outpacing that growth. There are currently ~2 million podcasts, according to Podcast Insights.

• We rely on recommendations and algorithms to guide us, and podcasts that have been around longer have the benefit of years of referrals and appearing in search results.

🔥 Insights for days… Here’s a quick stat to whip out at the dinner table: every week, more Americans listen to podcasts than have Netflix accounts (80M vs. 69M). Want a few more?👇

• Podcasts seem to be almost like a gateway drug. On average, listeners consume 8 podcasts during the course of a week – and overall, more listeners are listening to more podcasts per week compared to 2020.
• Monthly podcast listening is growing fastest among older Americans. From 2020 to 2021, the percentage of Americans ages 55+ who listen to podcasts monthly increased by 18%. And at the moment, more than one-quarter of all Americans 55+ are listening to podcasts each month.
• The average podcast gets ~27 listens per episode. (~3,200 per episode puts you in the top 1% of podcasts.)

🎧 Looking ahead… Expect for a lot of production companies to look abroad when investing in new shows, Bloomberg reports. Spotify is already a leading podcast service in a lot of other countries, and investing a ton of money into podcasts in Latin America, Europe, and Asia.