‘We haven’t yet reached peak podcast’: 2 million Aussie tune into podcasts daily
2 million Australians enjoy a daily podcast according to new insights shedding light on the nation’s podcast listening trends and preferences.
The PodPoll 2024 survey, conducted by Deadset Studios and market research agency, Insightfully, reveals that 39% of Australians – approximately 8.2 million people – listen to podcasts monthly.
In addition, 4 million tune in weekly, and a further 2.2 million listen at least once a month.
Spotify remains the most popular platform for podcast consumption, with 58% of respondents favouring it. However, YouTube has surprisingly overtaken Apple Podcasts as the second most-used platform, with 30% of listeners using YouTube compared to Apple’s 28%.
The survey was conducted online in June 2024, with respondents sourced from a pool of more than 2.55 million registered Australian market research panellists, and conducted in two parts:
“Part 1 was a short survey of n=4151 respondents to measure podcast listening habits; Part 2 reduced the sample size to n=1607 regular (monthly) listeners and added additional questions to delve deeply into their listening habits, preferences and demographic attributes.”
Data were weighted by age, gender and location to represent Australians 15+ years using the latest ABS census figures,
Deadset Studios’ director Kellie Riordan said: “We haven’t yet reached ‘peak podcast’ as Australians told us they’re keen for more. Anyone saying the podcast market is saturated is wrong, especially given there are only 4.5 million podcasts out there and more than 4 billion YouTube videos.
“If you’re trying to reach a particular age demographic or people interested in a specific topic, podcasts represent strong value given the number of hours spent listening. Plus, we know there’s a strong appetite for new titles, with two in five people (44%) sampling new shows each month.”
Insightfully managing director Leanne White added: “Australian podcast listeners continue their love affair with comedy, which again is the most popular genre. 30% of regular listeners tuned in to a comedy podcast in the past month. News and current affairs podcasts are a new entry in the top three at second spot (29%) while true crime still rates strongly for podcast listeners coming in third (27%).
“Society and culture shows have a strong following (fourth most popular at 26%) while the health and wellbeing category has been bumped into fifth (24%) from its third spot last year. At the same time respondents said they would like to see even more choice in the category.”
Generationally speaking, Millennials and Gen Z are now the highest consumers across the country, with 60% of listeners between the ages of 25 and 34. 3 million Millennials/Gen Y hear a podcast each month, closely followed by 2.2 million Gen Zs.
“Of those who don’t listen, 26% said they simply don’t have the time. It may be they are looking for short-form podcasts or more ‘snackable’ content offers,” White added.
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