Triton Digital and Edison Research: Podcast listening up to a new high

• More people are listening to podcasts than ever before. With Triton Digital, Edison Research has released its Infinite Dial 2021 study, which you can read in full on their website. Showing continued growth for podcast consumption, the study reports that 41%, or 116m of US adults 12+ now listen to podcasts every month. There are more numbers and analysis below.

• Meanwhile, iHeartRadio’s Inside Radio reports data from Edison Research’s Share of Ear study (Q4 2020). That claims that podcast listening accounts for 6% of all audio consumption; radio (AM/FM and SiriusXM) takes almost eight times that (47%). There’s plenty more space to grow.

• Google Podcasts is adding likes and dislikes to its app, reveals 9to5Google. A heart symbol will tweak recommendations for “more like this”; a thumbs-down button will stop recommending shows.

• Remote recording tool Zencastr has added new recording modes, so you don’t have to record video if you don’t want to.

  
  Sep 1 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.

• Josh Lindgren has been promoted to be head of talent agency CAA’s podcasting department. The company represents everyone from Gimlet to Lemonada Media.

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• During a cigar-lighting break in a podcast interview, which is not a good start for any story, Joe Rogan suggests that he is now happier with the user experience for podcasts within Spotify, while simultaneously making it sound as if he’s never actually used it.

• Sounds Profitable has a product deepdive with Spreaker next week (Mar 18). Mattia Verzella will walk through the Spreaker platform for publishers. It’s free to watch; sign up now.

Tips and tricks - with Radiodays Asia

• Switching DAWs: A Tale of Four Digital Audio Workspaces looks at Hindenburg Journalist Pro, Adobe Audition, Logic Pro and Reaper.

• Top Tips for Successful Podcast Marketing (Ruben Dua)

• How to win a British Podcast Award (though these tips from Acast are just as good for other awards too)

Podcast News - With Toyota Untold

Toyota Untold The Toyota MR2 — a fan favorite of hobby builders around the world, gets the nostalgia treatment in this week’s Toyota Untold.

Small Change is new from NOVA Podcasts - a twice-weekly show with little tips and tricks on how to save money and improve your finances.

The Rock Podcast with Denny Somach is new from PodcastOne. “Producer/Rock Historian Denny Somach and friends are bringing their career experiences and his library of thousands of interviews to new life in this fast-paced, fan-focused series.” It launched yesterday.

The Spout Podcast is also new: “it lets famous artists spout off on more than what they’re famous for”, says the press release. Stars include TikTok star Josh ‘Bru’ Brubaker, NFL Reporter Keiana Martin, nationally syndicated radio host Tino Cochino, and former MTV Veejay Erik Zachary.
Sep 1 2023: This broken link now points to the Internet Archive.
After an unofficial history of Spotify was released earlier this year as a book, Spotify: A Product Story is a show from Spotify about the history of Spotify: “the lessons that have shaped Spotify’s product, and took it from being an innovative idea to the most popular audio streaming subscription service in the world”. The Verge notes that it doesn’t mention iTunes, in a piece that unaccountably doesn’t mention Engadget.

Sounds Profitable, the podcast, talks about brand safety this week. “Algorithms that can’t detect tone and context often push advertisers away from markets where their inventory would succeed,” suggests Bryan Barletta. His guest is Moomal Shaikh of Oracle Moat.

Analysis: the Infinite Dial 2021 numbers

The full data from the Edison Research Infinite Dial 2021 is online. From the data, here’s what we learnt about podcasts, with added smilies.

• 😄 Great for reaching young people: For the first time, more than half - 56% - of 12-34 year-olds now listen to podcasts every month. They form half - 50% - of all monthly podcast consumers.
• 🤨 No growth for 35-54 year-olds: this age group is not seeing significant growth (and actually dropped a percentage point). We wonder why.
• 😄 Ethnically representative of the US: the ethnicity of monthly podcast listeners appears to broadly match diversity of the population.
• 🤔 We’re listening to more, but not much more: In spite of the number of available podcasts doubling in the past year, the majority of weekly listeners consume five or fewer each week.
• 🧐 Not addictive enough? 162m listen to podcasts every month; but only 80m listen every week. How can we convert more monthly listeners to weekly listeners?
• 🤭 Missing: The average time listening to podcasts each week (which was 6 hours 39 minutes in 2020) is now no longer reported in the main data.
• 🤡 What’s a podcast? Almost 4 out of 5 Americans (78%) now know what a podcast is. The hilarious “What’s a podcast?” joke is probably done now, thanks.