Podcast listening has continued to grow in the United States in recent years. Those in the format can only expect that listenership to grow before the end of 2024, according to a new Acast report.
The survey of established markets reports that 38% of podcast listeners will spend even more time with on-demand audio in the next six months. Additionally, 95% of global podcast listeners expect to spend the same or more amount of time listening to podcasts in that same timeframe.
“It highlights the uniqueness of the medium and the relationship — and that they’re going to spend more time with it highlights that there is a wealth yet to be discovered within podcasting, and what the medium itself is doing to people’s mental health well-being, and the relationship they have with it is incredibly positive,” Acast CEO Ross Adams said. “These are the kind of signals you need for more and more advertisers to start coming into the space. You don’t hear that with any other media. So we’re in a very special space.”
The study also suggested that video discovery is essential for podcasters. Nearly 75% (72%) say they have watched a video podcast.
“Video is a big part of podcasting. I don’t think it’s necessarily changing the entire approach to it, but I think it’s clear that people are discovering podcasts through video,” Adams said. “Therefore, as recommendations are still relatively broken in podcasting, video is going to play a bigger part in podcasting, but more so from the discovery side of things.”
Acast queried 2,600 weekly podcast users globally between the ages of 18-64. The company ensured that the data came from at least 13 countries with 200 weekly average listeners.
