🚀Gen Z Leads Video Podcast Boom: Spotify Study Uncovers Global Viewing Trends

The 2024 Spotify Fan Study has revealed a monumental shift in the podcasting landscape, where video podcasts have emerged as the new frontier for audience engagement.

According to the research, 40% of new Spotify podcast listeners in 2024 opted for video podcasts, showing the shifting trend in listener preferences. The visual revolution is not limited to how things appear on screens but creates amazing levels of audience loyalty, extends the global reach, and reaches across generations.

The dividing line between audio and visual is getting blurred, which presents both a great challenge and opportunity for podcasters to embrace the power of video in creating more immersive, engaging, and globally resonating content.

It focused on the viewing habits of the video podcast audience, analyzed the levels of loyalty within audiences, and tried to give a number of emerging global engagement trends of these viewers.

The report underlines the growing appeal of video podcasts among Spotify users, where 40% of new podcast listeners prefer video formats. It also reveals that video podcast audiences are 1.3 times more retainable than audio-only audiences, boasts global appeal, and the consumption rate among younger demographics is very high. The study shows flexibility in consumption habits, saying 67% of users switch between watching and listening, while the most engaged in giving full attention to video podcasts is Gen Z.

The Key Points:

• 40% of new Spotify podcast listeners in 2024 chose video podcasts

• Video podcast audiences are 30% more likely to retain than audio-only audiences

• Video podcasts have worldwide appeal, with top consumption in diverse countries

• 67% of users switch between watching video and listening to audio in video podcasts

• Generation Z (13-17) consumes 54% of the time in actively watching the video content

• More than 70% of video podcast consumers do so in the foreground.

Our Analogy: Think of the podcast industry as a busy restaurant district. For years, audio podcasts were the takeout joints down the street: convenient, enjoyed, but a little limited in their dining experience. Now, video podcasts are turning those takeout joints into full-service restaurants with open kitchens. Customers, in other words listeners, can now take out the meal and listen while doing something else, or dine in and watch intently. The chef, also known as the podcaster, is visible and adds another layer of engagement to the production of the meal through new types of content. This new format isn't just updating the food service but also bringing in new diners, making regulars more frequent, and even encouraging international food critics that a global audience can recognize.

Our View: As podcast producers, we take Spotify's Fan Study 2024 findings as a roadmap of great opportunities for innovative content and a driver in navigating the shifting landscape of podcast production. Video podcasts are gaining such momentum that it points one way: the path of evolution in content. We really should be considering how to introduce visual elements in our programs without losing that which makes podcasting so unique in the first place: its intimacy and flexibility.

This is great, since engagement times are higher for video podcasts. This means with the addition of a visual component, we will be able to build stronger, more durable relationships with our listeners, but we cannot afford to dumb down the quality of our audio. The majority of our listeners will still be an audio-only audience.

This also opens new possibilities for international growth because video podcasts are a globally appealing product. One might consider how to make his or her content more accessible to global viewers perhaps through visual storytelling techniques that transcend language barriers.

It's this flexibility in consumption patterns-usually flipping between watching and listening-that dares us to make something which will work both ways. That might mean creating a visual language which enhances the storytelling and doesn't feel essential to the story being told.

The good engagement, especially among the younger sets, that is Gen Z, indicates that a chunk of our content should be carved out for the viewers. This may be done either by including more interactive elements or by taking up topics which are most dear to them.

This does not mean we should forget those in older demographics, since this device is earning a lot of interest among them, too. It allows us to create content that interlinks generations and strikes a responsive chord in multi-variant audiences.

Lastly, a high percentage of foreground watching indicates that our visual content should be good enough to hold attention; this may require investment in higher quality video production and more cinematic thinking in how we present our content.

That is, the transition to video adds new technical and creative challenges, whereas the possibility of growing the audience, enhancing engagement, and innovating approaches to storytelling is at its very beginning. The most significant thing facing producers who currently make podcasts is how to embrace this trend without losing the core strengths of podcasting as a medium.

The Podwires readers receive journalism free of financial and political influence.

We set our own news agenda, which is always based on facts rather than billionaire ownership or political pressure.

Despite the financial challenges that our industry faces, we have decided to keep our reporting open to the public because we believe that everyone has the right to know the truth about the events that shape their world.

Thanks to the support of our readers, we can continue to provide free reporting. If you can, please choose to support The Podwires