At Mid-Year, What’s Up and What’s Down in Podcasting

We’re halfway through 2022. With so many data points flying by in a barrage of studies over the past few months, we wanted to single out a few notable stats worthy of your focus. Think of it as a mid-year report card for the audio business.

16%

There are roughly 388,000 podcasts with ten or more episodes actively in production in the last 90 days. That’s approximately 16% of the 2.5 million podcasts currently on Apple Podcasts  (podcastindustryinsights).

Down 80%

The pace of new podcasts has declined 80% from a year ago. The rate of launches has been frenetic over the past few years, likely augmented by people stuck at home due to Covid-19. Many ordered a Yeti, tried their hand at creating a show, and promptly podfaded. Call it a relic of the post-pandemic world or frustration in garnering a following after starting a podcast. Whatever the factors, the trend line is clear. 

7% of Listening and 2% of Revenue

Despite Spotify’s massive podcasting push, the performance numbers are still relatively small. Lucas Shaw of Bloomberg reports as of the first quarter of 2022, podcasts account for 7% of total listening hours, and podcast revenue was 2% for last year. No one thought simply turning on the podcast switch would be quick. Spotify has aggressively made moves from content acquisition to investments in advertising plumbing. It beats Apple as the way people listen to podcasts in many markets around the world. But as of right now, only 14% of the podcasts on Spotify earn substantial money.  That may explain some of the recent management changes in the podcast unit.

100 Minutes on Mobile

Mobile users spend more time listening to digital audio like podcasts and music than doing anything else on their devices. Fantastic. This year, the average U.S. adult will spend 1:40 per day listening to digital audio on any device. That comes out to 55% of total audio time. The remaining 45% (1:23) is spent with over-the-air AM/FM radio. A sizeable chunk, but clearly audio listening is leaning to the digital side. 

23% and Rising

How much of that digital audio time will go to podcasts? According to eMarketer, podcasts will account for almost 1/4th of all digital audio listening this year. Five years ago it was less than 10% (9.1%). 

33% are Newbies

Cumulus Media/Signal Hill Insights found 33% of podcast listeners started in the past year. Not surprisingly, they skew 18-34. Keep ‘em coming.

1/3rd to Spoken Word

36% - that’s the percent of AM/FM stations streaming in PPM markets that goes to spoken word formats. Westwood One reports overall AM/FM streaming in larger radio markets is 11%, and spoken word (talk/personality) is 1/3rd of that.

0.88 0.83 0.76 0.67

That’s Audacy’s (AUD) stock price over the last 4 sessions, (up through 7/13/22) which would place the market cap at roughly $127 million on $1.22 billion in revenue. One year ago, the stock traded at $4; three years ago, it was $6. Stocks below $1.00 on the New York Stock Exchange risk delisting. Audacy has many premium radio stations with great programming and a growing podcast network, Cadence13.  Debt is the monster most broadcasters wrestle with. What happens if we have a much talked about economic downturn?  We are hearing the ad market is softening.

8:18 vs. 7:30

You might think producers of podcasts - the people who make them - OD on podcast listening. According to Sounds Profitable, in partnership with Edison Research podcasters listen to 8:18 minutes per week.  That’s not much more than regular weekly podcast listeners, who clock in at 7:30. Time is not elastic …….. even for podcasters. At a podcast course I recently taught at NYU, students lamented being time starved only listening to a few episodes each week. And these were podcast fans.

Tied at 27% and 27%

Cumulus Podcast Network and Signal Hill Insights found YouTube and Spotify are tied as the most used podcast platforms among people who started with podcasts in the past year. YouTube ranks 3rd behind Apple and Spotify among heavy podcast listeners. Among YouTube podcast users, slightly more (56%) watch the video while listening.

61 Million times

That’s the number of web hits last month for Heardle, a Wordle inspired game which Spotify picked up this week. No financial terms were disclosed. See if you can guess the song in one second. Fun, and maddening.

The pace of our industry can make your head spin. What’s up one week can be down the next. Two things you can count on, rapid change and we’ll be here filtering it.

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Next Tuesday (7/19), I will be interviewed by Radio Ink & Podcast Business Journal editor Ed Ryan about practical strategies to make money in podcasting. Among the things we will touch on is “swinging for the fences,” vs the value of niches.