Recently, Blubrry CIO Angelo Mandato presented at the Engineering Society Conference during NAB Show New York. Drawing on data collected from the more than 85,000 podcasts Blubrry serves through its comprehensive menu of services, Mandato provided a wealth of information on podcast consumption, growth, listening habits, category preferences and more. Here is a sampling of the data revealed in the presentation:
Who’s Listening To Podcasts?
Survey data collected by Blubrry indicated that listeners are relatively young and educated. Mandato’s presentation indicated that men listen to more podcasts than women, 72% compared to 28%, and that most listeners, 33.68%, are in their late twenties or early thirties. 21.74% of survey respondents fell between the ages of 36 and 45, making that the second-largest age demographic of podcast listeners. Most listeners (27.27%) earn between $40,000 and $74,999, with 24.91 % of listeners earning between $0 and $39,999 per year. Overwhelmingly, listeners have at least a high school diploma (98%) with 80% having earned some kind of degree.
What Are People Listening To?
Comedy still dominates as the most popular niche, with Sports and Recreation, TV & Film, News & Politics, and Society & Culture the next most-popular topic areas. Kids & Family brings up the rear as the least-popular podcast topic, possibly indicating plenty of room for growth in the future.
How Are People Listening?
Blubrry’s highly-detailed statistics indicate that approximately ½ of web browser traffic is coming from mobile devices, while nearly 63% of podcasts are consumed via mobile apps. iOS still dominates, with 57.1% of all podcasts being listened to via the Apple Podcasts app. We predict that desktop browsers will level off at 5% (currently at 6.8%, down from 13% in 2013) and that, by 2020, Android market share will be 35%, iOS about 55%, and the remaining 10% will be spread across browsers and niche devices like Alexa, Google Home, and Smart TVs.
Will Podcasting Continue To Grow?
The last 10 years have shown explosive growth in podcasting, and tremendous opportunity as well. While there are currently over 425,000 podcasts available today – that’s 300% more than in 2007 – only 30% of those shows have released episodes in the past 3 months. With listener consumption up 500% since 2007, now’s the time to jump on board the podcasting trend if you haven’t already – or, revive a show that’s fading and commit to consistent and frequent publishing from now on.
This is just a sampling of the data shared in Mandato’s presentation – you can read the whole thing here.