Barrett Media produces over 20 stories per day on the music, news, and sports media industries. Stay updated on the latest happenings by signing up to receive our newsletters straight to your inbox.
As the 2024 election approaches, the way podcasts are affecting the race is becoming clearer as Triton Digital releases new data showing listenership has increased.
According to the new data, political podcasts have seen a 28% increase in year-over-year downloads, with the upticks increasing during the past six months.
Of note, podcasts that feature left-leaning content have seen twice as many downloads as conservative-leaning shows. Despite accounting for more of the political podcast market, Democratic-based shows actually saw a slight drop in listenership, from 58% to 56%, while Republican-focused shows rose from 23% to 28% in the past year.
The podcast listener demographics for political-based shows reveal an older, highly educated, and affluent audience compared to the general podcast listening population. Nearly 60% of listeners are college graduates, with an additional 32% reporting a household income above $100,000. Nearly half of all political podcast listeners are 55 years or older.
Conservative podcasts featured the highest proportion of white/caucasian listeners, with nearly 90% putting themselves in that demographic, according to Triton Digital. Meanwhile, liberal podcasts feature the highest number of Black/African-American listeners, as 17.4% of consumers fit that demographic.
