💥 Audiences for podcasts reach all-time highs

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The Infinite Dial 2024, which is backed by Audacy, Cumulus Media, and SiriusXM Media, shows that the number of people listening to podcasts in the U.S. will grow, with more people listening to podcasts every month and every week. Last week, Edison Research released its annual report live at Podcast Movement Evolutions. You can read the whole thing here. Last year, 64% of people aged 12 and up in the U.S. had ever listened to a podcast. This year, that number rises to 67%, and the number of people who listen to podcasts every month also rises, from 42% in 2023 to 47% in 2024. 34% of people aged 12 and up in the U.S. say they have listened to a podcast in the last week. This is up from 31% in 2023. Every week, about 98 million people listen to podcasts. To put it another way, the number of people who listen to podcasts every week in the U.S. is now just below 100 million. Some people in the business world are still upset about the change to the iPhone's operating system, which caused fewer people to download apps. Even though it's hard to make sense of drops in numbers that big, let's be clear: fewer downloads doesn't always mean fewer listens. Actually, this year's Infinite Dial had all the strong proof we needed to show that podcast listening is on the rise.

Regarding podcasting today, one can break down the population into three equal parts, as seen in the graph Above.

Only 16% of the U.S. population remains unfamiliar with the term “Podcasting.” An essentially equal number (17%) are familiar but have not listened. As such, one-third of the U.S. population can be identified as potential podcast listeners.

In the middle group we find that 20% of the population have tried podcasts, but have not listened in the past month, and 13% have listened in the last month but not in the last week. Combine those two groups and that’s another one-third of the U.S. population with the potential to move further down the podcast funnel– some of whom could eventually join the final group.

At the bottom of the graph are the group of people who listen to podcasts on a weekly basis (34%).

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