Contradictory Listening Research

Edison Research, a market research company that studies broadcasting markets, among other businesses and industries, publishes two reports relevant to podcasting, radio and streaming audio programming, “The Infinite Dial” study and “Share Of Ear” data. Thinking of the results of these sets of information in one context evokes several questions.

“Infinite Dial” focuses on digital media consumption, including how listeners consume it (on what devices), and what they consume (podcasts, internet radio, etc.). Based on a sample of 2,000 responses from people age 12 and older, the study reports a stunning figure of 168 million or 60% of the US population, that are familiar with podcasts. Within that segment, 112 million or 40% have listened to a podcast and 67 million or 24% had listened to a podcast in the past month. 42 million people or 15% had listened to a podcast in the past week.

Beyond these figures, “Infinite Dial” found that weekly podcast listeners listen to an average of five podcasts each week. Also, among those who have ever listened to a podcast, 80% listened at home, 47% listened in a vehicle and just 19% listened while on public transportation. This breakdown would likely be different if the survey was just conducted among city residents.

Nevertheless, that first figure of 168 million, or even the 112 million who have actually tried podcasts, is a significant segment of the entire US population, which numbers about 323 million. Putting these figures side by side with key “Share Of Ear” data paints a striking picture of podcasting’s potential for growth as a medium. The most interesting piece of “Share Of Ear” data is that podcasts get just 3% of the share of audio time that people 18 and older spend listening to audio of any kind.

The sample size used is not readily available, and it’s a different age range than “Infinite Dial.” Most of the listening, 51%, is AM/FM radio, according to the data, and 5%, slightly more than for podcasts, is listening to SiriusXM.

Still, if podcasting is really reaching 112 million listeners, and that’s being achieved from just 3% of “Share Of Ear,” this leaves a lot of room for growth. AM/FM’s share of listeners’ time is only going to keep declining. Podcasting, SiriusXM, Spotify and others will probably surpass 10% of listeners’ time within a few years in that survey.

The deeper dive within “Infinite Dial” results, showing that among those who do subscribe to podcasts, they subscribe to an average of six podcasts – along with the news that weekly podcast listeners listen to an average of five podcasts per week – shows that the medium’s reach is itself deep among those who use it.

There are probably many more questions and interesting statistical breakdowns of podcast listenership and listening habits that can be done. Just off the top of my head, I’d say a lot more can be asked to confirm whether the podcasting market is only barely being tapped as the comparison of “Infinite Dial” and “Share Of Ear” data suggests, or its reach is already closer to its ceiling than that data suggests.

Podcast of the moment:

What Really Happened, “The Talk,” October 25, 2017; and “The Lone Wolf” November 1, 2017. These first two episodes of a new podcast from former MTV host Andrew Jenks, do a different version of Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast. Instead of focusing on a misunderstood phenomenon, Jenks chooses stories about prominent personalities in recent history and seeks to bring out the real reasons why they happened – or to clear up how they really happened, if that is in doubt. “The Talk” is about Muhammad Ali supposedly talking a suicidal man out of jumping from a building in Los Angeles in January 1981, tackling whether this really happened the way it was reported at that time. “The Lone Wolf” is about a figure in New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s Bridgegate scandal, as well as how the scandal really happened to begin with. Without spoiling this, the episode concludes with an imagined cinematic scene depicting how Jenks believes the closure of the George Washington Bridge as political retaliation really happened.

Throw Out Your Radio. Well, Sort Of.

A quicker entry today. I will have more in the works.

In this blog, I’m sometimes not sure what to even call podcasting in certain contexts. I’ve also referred to it as “streaming audio entertainment,” because satellite radio has on-demand spoken word or talk-show programming. Of course, SiriusXM’s greater selling point is its music channels.

So, please indulge me today as I make a point about the music programming, because this can circle back to how its podcast-style programming is received. More and more, the selection a SiriusXM listener can get on an actual satellite radio (especially those installed in vehicles) is limited in comparison to what is offered over its web app.

This was highlighted recently (and got a lot of attention on Twitter) when SiriusXM pulled its adventurous Loft station off its actual radios in favor of a station devoted to the Eagles. Everybody has their tastes, and I love some of the artists I’m about to mention, but increasingly, the channel lineup is getting devoted to monoliths focused on only one artist. It started with Elvis, the Grateful Dead, Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen, but that’s now proliferated to the Beatles (deserved), Tom Petty (like him, but doesn’t require a whole station), Neil Diamond (again, a whole station?), Jimmy Buffett and, yes, the Eagles. The Sinatra and Willie Nelson stations tend not to be as limited to only the work of their namesake artist, but play a lot of other artists with similar styles.

This would all be fine if there were endless bandwidth on the non-app version of the service, but there apparently isn’t. And that bandwidth actually excludes single-artist-focused stations some might want, like (George) Carlin’s Corner.

I don’t know how precise other satellite radio listeners are. I would bother to pick out on-demand interview programs from the SiriusXM app and play those, even in my car, rather than just hoping an interesting talk program is available on the dial. But I imagine many would not bother to do this.

Is this a problem that SiriusXM need even be concerned about sorting out? What might make the most sense, even though it seems drastic, is to stop making the satellite radio equipment, and do everything over the app, so one can have the full selection of channels and programming choices, wherever they are (as you already do on smartphones and computers), including vehicles.

Podcasts of the moment:

Criminal, Episode 51 “Money Tree,” September 23, 2016: A fascinating story about a very unexpected solution to a case of identity theft.

The Rewatchables, “The Fugitive,” November 2, 2017: Bill Simmons and colleagues break down the 1993 blockbuster action movie in the fun and entertaining manner they often do in this podcast series (one of numerous Ringer shows now). Also, this show’s episode about “Titanic,” from September, without Simmons but with a few Ringer staffers, is equally entertaining.