Podcast demographics and reach

By Cliff Dumas

Podcasts in Apple podcasts are about to surpass 1 million! Podcasting was invented by Dave Winer and Adam Curry and first used in 2004. Apple launched support for podcasts in iTunes 4.9, released on June 28, 2005. This was the first inflection point for podcasts by bringing podcast discovery, subscription, and consumption to Windows and OS X PCs in more than 100 countries. What are the demographics and reach of today’s podcasts? The research is extremely compelling (the percentages are similar in Canada):

70% of the US population is familiar with the term “podcasting” – up from 64% in 2018 (Infinite Dial 19)

50% of all US homes are podcast fans (Nielsen, Aug 2017)

51% (144 million) of the US population has listened to a podcast – up from

44% in 2018 (Infinite Dial 19)

32% (90 million) listened to a podcast in the last month – up from 26% in 2018 (Infinite Dial 19)

22% (62 million) listen to podcasts weekly – up from 17% in 2018 (Infinite Dial 19)

16 million people in the US are “avid podcast fans” (Nielsen Q1 2018)

56% of podcast listeners are Male

45% of monthly podcast listeners have a household income over $75K – vs

35% for the total population

27% of US podcast listeners have a 4-year college degree – vs 19% for US pop

36% of podcast listeners are non-white – vs 30% in 2010 (Nielsen, Aug 2017)