The pandemic boom in podcast listening was just a warmup act it turns out. Triton Digital says the number of monthly podcast listeners has continued to rise, with it tracking a 12% growth rate during the past two years. Based on its measurement of podcast downloads, as well as companion survey data, Triton says during 2023, four in ten (40%) of U.S. adults reported listening to a podcast within the past month. “This growth was reflected across all segments of the population, especially those late to adopting podcasts as a preferred medium,” Triton says.
The just-released U.S. Podcast Report finds that older Americans and women are listening to podcasts at a faster rate, with a 22% increase in listeners over the age of 55 and a 13% increase for 35- to 54-year-olds.
“2023 was another year of significant growth for the podcast industry, and with increasing female and over 55+ audiences, we can expect more content production to serve those groups in the coming year,” Trion Senior VP Daryl Battaglia said.
In terms of gender, there has been a 19% increase in female listeners over the past two years, which is more than double the 7% increase among male listeners. But overall, men still over index for podcast listening versus women. At the same time, younger age groups – those 44 and younger – all over index relative to the population as a whole. The data confirms that podcast listeners are also more educated and more diverse. Triton says Hispanics are 18% more likely to be a podcast listener than the general population, and African Americans are 10% more likely.
Despite reports of news fatigue, Triton’s year-end report says the top podcast genre last year among the publishers it measures was News, which accounted for 22% of downloads. It was followed by True Crime (18%) and Comedy (15%).
As to be expected, the different genres reached different audience segments. News podcast listeners skewed male with listeners 55 and older 66% more likely to tune into shows in that category. Meantime two-thirds of True Crime podcasts were women, with women 25-34 most likely to be listeners of the category. And among Comedy podcasts, men – especially 18–24-year-olds – were the easiest to be found.
Triton’s report also shows the continued rise of YouTube as a listening platform for podcasts, as well as why that may be good for the industry overall. It says YouTube is attracting new podcast listeners with 47% of those using YouTube reporting they have started listening in the past year. And 31% saying they have begun in the past two or three years.
Overall, Triton says a third (34%) of podcast listeners say YouTube is the app they used most often to consume podcasts last year, up four points from 2021. The data shows YouTube users skew younger, and more male, and they also typically have lower income than users of traditional podcast apps like Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
The report incorporates data from multiple sources, the Triton Podcast Metrics service, which measures server log data from the Triton Omny Studio platform and a variety of other industry hosting platforms. It also includes data from Triton Podcast Metrics Demos+ solution, which provides demographics and audience characteristics for podcasts of all sizes, as well as the Demos+ survey of 12,000 monthly podcast listeners in the U.S., done in collaboration with Signal Hill Insights.
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