“Light” podcast listeners — or those that listen to a podcast one to three times a month — now make up nearly half of podcast listeners, up 10% in May 2021 compared to August 2018, according to Digiday citing a Nielsen webinar on June 15 that highlighted podcast trends from the measurement provider’s Podcast Buying Power survey and Podcast Ad Effectiveness studies.
In 2018, podcast listeners were “pretty evenly distributed” between light, medium (those that listen four to nine times a month) and heavy listeners (those that listen 10 or more times a month), according to Tony Hereau, vp of cross platform insights at Nielsen. It’s unclear to what extent the light listener trend observed by Nielsen indicates that heavier podcast listeners are cutting back on their consumption or that more people are dabbling with this form of audio-based news and entertainment.
Companies like Spotify and Facebook are investing in podcast hosting and players, so people who would otherwise be on these platforms for music or social interactions are “being pushed in the direction of podcasts,” said Hilary Ross, vp of podcast media at Veritone One.
An increase of light podcast listeners “shows us there is a lot of dabbling in this space, and the hope is that this is a sticky medium, and it can convert them to heavier users,” she said. “We want people who are going to convert. If it’s the first or 15th podcast they listen to all week, as long as we are serving relevant ads and relevant messages to them, that’s what we care about.”
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