Although Growing, Podcasts Account For Sliver Of TSL

Podcasting continued to grow in both audience and programming in 2015, though listening is still limited to a minority of the American public, and roughly half of the country is not even familiar with the term “podcasting.” Podcast producers continued to experiment with potential revenue streams during the year, while some in the industry took steps to try to begin to move beyond downloading as the standard of measurement for listenership.

The most recent State Of The Media from Pew Research reports, a growing minority of Americans are listening to podcasts, according to survey data from Edison Research. As of 2016, 21% of Americans age 12 or older say they have listened to a podcast in the past month, reflecting steady incremental growth since 2013 – when this share was 12%.



That percentage rises to 36% when it comes to those who have ever listened to a podcast – double the share who had done so in 2008, according to Edison. And, reflective of the country’s shift to mobile more broadly, mobile devices (smartphones, tablets or other portable devices) are increasingly preferred over desktops or laptops for podcast listening. In 2016, 64% of Americans age 12 or older who have ever listened to a podcast said they were listening “most often” on a mobile device, compared to 55% in 2015. Conversely, 34% said in 2016 that they listen most often on a desktop or laptop computer, while 42% said this in 2015.



Still, even though more people are listening to podcasts, it is worth noting that the medium accounts for only a very small sliver of the share of time that Americans spend listening to all audio sources. According to Edison Research data from their Share of Ear Survey conducted in the fourth quarter of 2015, only 2% of all audio listening is spent using podcasts, compared to 54% of time that is spent listening to AM/FM radio.