Australia: two million podcast fans listen daily

Two million Australians lay claim to a daily podcast habit, with new audio insights providing a snapshot of who’s listening, what genres are favoured by fans, and the podcasts we may see more of in the future.

Australian podcast production house Deadset Studios and leading market research agency Insightfully have today released the findings of PodPoll 2024, Australia’s most in-depth survey into podcasting listening habits and behaviours.

Deadset Studios’ Director Kellie Riordan said there had been extraordinary growth in both podcast creation and consumption over the past five years, but with room for more podcasts in under-serviced categories.

“We haven’t yet reached ‘peak podcast’ as Australians told us they’re keen for more. Anyone saying the podcast market is saturated is wrong, especially given there’s only 4.5 million podcasts out there and more than 4 billion YouTube videos.

“If you’re trying to reach a particular age demographic or people interested in a specific topic, podcasts represent strong value given the number of hours spent listening. Plus, we know there’s a strong appetite for new titles, with two in five people (44%) sampling new shows each month,” Kellie said.

PodPoll 24 shows 39% of Australians have a regular listening habit, meaning 8.2 million sets of ears are glued to podcasts in any given month. In addition to the two million daily podcast devotees, four million Australians are tuning in at least once a week and a further 2.2 million at least each month.

Listeners’ favourite platform is clearly Spotify, with 58% of respondents preferencing it. But the biggest surprise is that YouTube has overtaken Apple as the second biggest platform for podcast consumption in Australia. Thirty percent say they are using the visual medium to consume a podcast, nudging ahead of Apple Podcasts (28%).

Insightfully Managing Director Leanne White said this year’s survey asked 42 questions, drilling into current podcast listening trends and generational demographics to provide a useful overview of who’s listening, when and why.

“Australian podcast listeners continue their love affair with comedy which again is the most popular genre. Thirty percent of regular listeners tuned in to a comedy podcast in the past month. News and current affairs podcasts are a new entry in the top three at second spot (29%) while true crime still rates strongly for podcast listeners coming in third (27%).

"Society and culture shows have a strong following (fourth most popular at 26%) while the health and wellbeing category has been bumped into fifth (24%) from its third spot last year. At the same time though, respondents said they would actually like to see even more choice in the category.”

Leanne said generationally speaking, Millennials and Gen Z are now the highest consumers across the country. “Sixty percent of listeners are between the ages of 25 and 34. Three million Millennials hear a podcast each month, closely followed by 2.2 million Gen Zs.

“Of those who don’t listen, 15% said they simply don’t have the time. It may be they are looking for short-form podcasts or more ‘snackable’ content offers,” Leanne added.

Kellie said this year’s insights would help steer podcast creators, advertisers and the media industry when commissioning future podcasts.

“Listeners have also shown us an unmet hunger for beauty and lifestyle podcasts, and history content. There are also opportunities in science and environment, fashion and beauty, business and careers, and gaming/technology.”

The survey revealed most listeners are prepared to stick with an episode once they get started, with a remarkable 80% completing episodes all or most of the time. Podcast listeners generally consume multiple episodes per week, with half of them listening to between 2 and 4 episodes.

“Then there’s the super podcast fans, with almost one in ten listeners bingeing on more than 10 episodes a week!” Kellie added.

About the methodology

PodPoll 24 is Australia’s most in-depth podcast listener survey. Conducted by Insightfully and fielded via online questionnaire in June 2024 the survey comprised 42 questions, answered by a representative sample of Australians aged 15 years and over.

Data collection used triple-interlocking quota targets and data have been weighted by age, gender and location using the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics Census data.

The survey was conducted in two parts. Part 1 was a survey among n=4151 Australians 15+ to accurately measure media consumption rates nationwide; Part 2 reduced the sample size to n=1,607 regular (monthly) podcast listeners, and added additional questions to delve deeply into their listening habits, preferences, and demographic attributes.

About Deadset Studios

Deadset Studios is Australia’s premier podcast production house and a global leader in creative story-telling, podcast development and creation, and audio strategy. Director Kellie Riordan is an internationally recognised podcast strategist who founded Deadset Studios in 2020. Kellie established the ABC’s podcast unit and initiated some of the country’s most successful podcasts including Unravel True Crime, Conversations, and Ladies We Need to Talk.

Deadset Studios have created award-winning podcasts for media organisations including ABC, SBS, ARN Media, BBC, iHeartRadio, Deutsche Welle and Global UK, as well as branded podcasts for Dementia Australia, UNSW, The University of Sydney, VicHealth, Shine Lawyers, and Jobsbank.

About Insightfully

Leading Australian market and opinion research agency Insightfully is trusted by some of Australia’s most senior decision makers to provide high quality, accurate insights for winning campaigns. Founder and Managing Director Leanne White has provided research to corporate clients and lobby groups and provided insights to Prime Ministers in Australia and the UK.

Insightfully clients include the Australian Automobile Association, the ABC and the Pharmacy Guild to whom Insightfully provided the numbers behind the winning 2022 Affordable Medicines Now campaign.