Study: Most Podcast and DSP Listeners Use Earbuds

NuVooDoo Research has introducer "VoodooVision". It's a  new study spans over 5,300 respondents nationwide, allowing more than sufficient PPM market sample to trend with our past Ratings Prospects Studies, but allows them the luxury of diving deep into new issues and usage of audio entertainment media beyond broadcast radio. Their launch includes sneak previews to clients later this month as we prepare for the webinars we’ll be presenting in March. Signing up for one of the three sessions gets you the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the session. Complete information can be found at nuvoodoo.com/webinars.

NuVoodDoo asked respondents to consider that they can listen to FM or AM radio stations on a car radio, a radio at home or at work, on a smartphone app, and using a station’s website. When they consider all of those possibilities, the results for radio are sharply more speaker-centric than the results are for podcasts and DSPs, Demand Side Platforms.

They report they've learned with these new data that, while broadcast radio is certainly the most speaker-centric audio medium, it’s by no means “speaker exclusive.” Given choices of only on a speaker, only using earbuds/headphones, or several points in between, more broadcast radio listeners say they listen to radio mostly via earbuds/headphones than say they listen mostly on a speaker.

Most listeners to podcasts and DSPs are using earbuds or headphones – with fewer than 1 in 5 saying they listen to either medium mostly or only using a speaker. By contrast, broadcast radio nearly doubles that proportion – with nearly 2 in 5 saying they listen mostly or only using a speaker. But the headline is nearly half say they listen to broadcast radio on earbuds or headphones.

Among the heaviest broadcast radio listeners in our sample, those listening ten hours or more each week, broadcast radio becomes even less speaker-centric. Among those heavies about 1 in 3 are speaker-centric – meaning many are listening primarily or exclusively on earbuds or headphones. For the sake of the industry we love, we hope that measurement is keeping up with this shift.