Thirteen years ago, when the only ways to listen to a podcast were through a computer or by transferring it to an iPod, someone from Edison Research added a question about podcast listening to our annual study Infinite Dial study. Thanks to the foresight of that hero of an audio geek, Edison has a unique look at the history of the growth of podcast listening in the U.S.
And throughout that history, Edison has observed that the number of women podcast listeners has trailed behind the number of men listeners. In the earlier years of podcasting, the gap was significant (in 2008, the percent of women who ever listened to a podcast lagged behind men by 25%). Today, podcasters are inching toward closing that gender listening gap (in 2018, the percent of women who ever listen to podcasts only lags behind men by 9%), and we at Edison would like to provide some information that might help close the gap further. To do so, Edison Research has taken a look back at some of previously published studies to take a closer look at the women in those data sets to understand podcasting’s role in women’s lives.
Women monthly podcast consumers overall are younger than the 12+ population, with 44% of them under the age of 35 compared to 37% in the total population. Women age 25-34 are the really sweet spot for podcasting listenership, with over a third of them saying they’ve listened to a podcast in the last month. There is still a lot of room for growth among in the other age groups, especially with women age 55 and older, with only 13% saying they’ve listened to a podcast in the last month.
Compared to the total population, age 18+, women podcast consumers have a higher annual household income. Fully 44% have a household income of $75,000, compared to only 38% of the total population. Women podcast consumers are also more likely to have obtained higher education than compared to the total population. Thirty-six percent of women who are monthly podcast consumers have attended at least some graduate school (vs. 23% of all Americans). So, women podcast listeners are pretty well-off and highly educated: two very sought after demographics for advertisers.
One number that Edison really sees grow year after year is the amount of time these weekly listeners spend listening to podcasts. In 2018, women podcast consumers that reported listening in the last week (15% of U.S. women), listen to an average of 5 hours and 37 minutes of podcasts per week, which is up from 4 hours and 29 minutes in 2017. Women weekly podcast consumers listen to an average of seven podcasts per week, up from five per week in 2017. These data along with and in-person interviews with podcast listeners all indicate that when someone becomes a podcast listener, he/she spends a lot of time listening to podcasts. Edison Research’s Share of Ear® study looks more deeply at time spent listening.
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