One-in-five hours of ad-supported audio is to podcasts

• Americans listen to audio for almost four hours every day, and almost one-in-five hours listening to ad-supported audio is listening to a podcast. The data is released by Nielsen today in the company’s 2024 Quarterly Audio Report, including data from Edison Research. Commercial radio gets a 67% share of ad-supported audio. For those aged 18-34, podcasts are even more popular, taking up almost a third of all time spent listening to ad-supported audio. Positive numbers, but ones that show how much growth is possible.

• 48% of 18-34s in Australia listen to podcasts every month, according to new data - and podcast listeners are listening to more shows. The 2024 Australian Podcast Report was released today, released by Australian commercial radio industry body Commercial Radio & Audio.

  • The report, though, needs to be read with caution, since it relies heavily on data from the Triton Digital Podcast Ranker, which only lists participating publishers. One claim in the press release, quoted by Lizzie Young, CRA’s CEO, is that “63% of podcasts are achieving more than 100,000 average monthly downloads in 2024”. That simply isn’t true: based on our analysis, this number comes from the top 200 participating shows in the ranker (where, for example, in December, 139 of the 200 listed shows achieved more than 100,000 downloads - about 70%.) Most podcasts will achieve significantly less than this. Additionally, the report claims that total average monthly listeners in 2024 increased 8.5% year-on-year, but these are numbers for participating publishers, and as the small print notes, “numbers will increase as new publishers join”. The ABC joined in Dec 2023. The CRA wasn’t able to respond to us by press time.
  • Other Australian data includes the Deadset Studios PodPoll 2024, released in September.

• mowPod Charts is a new replacement to Chartable’s chart ranking tool. “Forever-free”, the tool contains historic data, email notifications, and doesn’t require an account.

• The Chris Voss Show (“top 1% most popular show”) did 655 shows in 2023. He seems busy: and looking at the transcripts of recent shows, he’s very good at selling whatever his guests come on to talk about. But what you wouldn’t know, as a listener, is that many of his guests are paying to appear. Voss tells us that he “accepts advertising”, but that the fees to appear on the show are “proprietary and private” (and denies a LinkedIn post from Daniel Hall, claiming a charge of $1,000). “Most podcasts sell ads, and we are no different … we are a non-story,” he tells us. But, listeners are not told in the audio that guests have paid to appear, as the FTC requires. Voss added in his response to us that he was planning to buy advertising in Podnews - we’re unsure why that was relevant.

  • Audacy’s Podcorn has some helpful advice.

• Podscribe is now more accurately working out a podcast’s audience by combining two sets of data. The “double device graph” now matches 85% of US households, and adds more detailed segmentation.

• Blubrry is now giving free podcast hosting for teachers and educators. All pro hosting plans with Blubrry are now free for educators.

• Medcast: SNL had a(nother) skit on podcasting last week. Don’t go getting any ideas. (Thanks, Aliah!)

Thank you to Cloud10 for becoming a new gold supporter this week. One of the US’s largest podcast networks with millions of downloads a month, the company has more than a hundred top-ranked podcasts. Companies like Cloud10 pay for Podnews so everyone can access our journalism, and so we can afford to ask difficult questions of people who were “going to buy advertising with us”. You can support us here.

People News

• Jay Shaylor is to be the new Executive Producer of NPR’s Up First, and Morning Edition. He joins from CBS Evening News.

• Fiona Hanlon has been hired as Managing Director of the UK’s podcast production company Persephonica. She had worked for the BBC for 17 years.

Tips and tricks - with Pod Predictor by Coleman Insights

• Is something on your show an ad? Has it been paid for? You need to disclose that (both to keep within the law, but also to treat your listeners right). Audacy’s Podcorn has some helpful advice.

Podcast News - with Memberful

Using Memberful: This Week in Tech uses Memberful for reliable, recurring revenue - and this week, Leo Laporte and the round table covered the return of Pebble smartwatches, what’s going on with Apple AI, and O3-Mini, a new model from Open AI.

The Sound Off Podcast this week has our Editor, James Cridland, as a guest this week. Matt Cundill talks about many different things - both radio and podcasts; especially James’s (changing) feelings about Podcasting 2.0, and the shift to video.

Why has period pain been dismissed for so long? Launching today, CRAMPED pulls back the curtain on one of medicine’s most overlooked mysteries. Hosted by Kate Helen Downey, this investigative series blends science, storytelling, and dark humor to explore the medical, economic, and cultural impact of menstrual pain—and why so many people are still suffering in silence.