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.