Audio audiences Steady change
Our clients have full access to all of our reports. Clients can log in to read this report. Click here to become a client. Alternatively, you can purchase this individual report.
The 20,000 foot view: Podcasts reinvigorated the audio market, bringing with it the promise of a ‘Netflix moment’ for radio. Though podcast audience growth has not kept pace with industry interest and hype, podcasts have been at the centre of a boom in audio consumption that was accentuated by Covid lockdowns, and that is recalibrating post-pandemic.
Key Insights
- Radio is most widely listened to audio with weekly active user (WAU) up from 2020 but down 2021
- Although only consumers listen to music streaming it is a clear second the audio format landscape, and two percentage points up from
- Podcast WAU remains niche at just though up two points from 2020, 2021 penetration peaked at in
- Audiobook penetration in 2021, which was one up from 2020 but down from in 2021
- The unique audience grew by one percentage in 2021, however the combined of the sum total of individual formats was
- Overlaps between formats is growing: of Spotify were podcast WAUs in 2021, from one year earlier of radio listeners were also music streaming WAUs (up from in 2020)
- Spotify has established itself as the dominant platform in terms of audience with of all podcast users
- Spotify’s podcast is highest in Australia the and Sweden
- BBC Sounds the UK is the most used national broadcaster podcast app
- Amazon, though, the fastest growing platform, up in 2021 to in 2021
- Audio address demographics: streaming and podcasts have users aged under and respectively) radio has the highest aged
Companies and brands mentioned in this report :Amazon, Apple, Audible, BBC Sounds, Dolly Parton, Downcast, Google, India.Arie, Joni Mitchell, Luminary, Meta, Neil Young, Netflix, NPR, Spotify, Sveriges Radio, Wondery