Podcasts have been around for nearly two decades, but the format has come into its own over the last five years. A proliferation of shows, involvement from celebrity talent, investment from large companies like Spotify, and the spread of technologies that boost awareness, like smart speakers, have all helped podcast growth.

Industry statistics suggest that Podcasting will be a $1 billion industry by 2021 and Spotify specifically is projected to become the most popular podcast platform in the US.

Listening trends and popularity of genres (US)

Podcast listener numbers will see significant growth this year as demand for on-demand audio has increased. In 2021, the number of monthly US podcast listeners will increase by 10.1% year-over-year (YoY) to 117.8 million. We are mostly seeing traction among younger consumers—this year, more than 60% of US adults ages 18 to 34 will listen to podcasts monthly. However, as listeners get older podcast listenership drops. Out of consumers between the ages 35 to 44, about half will listen to podcasts monthly, and less than one-fifth of consumers over 65 will listen to podcasts each month.

Spotify specifically is projected to become the most popular podcast platform in the US this year. Spotify will surpass Apple Podcast in listeners—28.2 million US internet users will listen to podcasts monthly on Spotify, compared with 28.0 million who will do so on Apple Podcasts.

According to recent figures and insights published by Nielsen, people are listening more from home (from 40% in 2018 to 50% in 2021), and less while travelling to work. Gen X still make up the largest portion of podcast listeners, representing 42%.

Comedy is the most popular genre of podcasts as of May 2021, with 43% of all podcast listeners tuning into comedy podcasts. News podcasts are next, at 38%, followed by society & culture, true crime, education, music and business.

The dominance of the individual: US Business Podcast Chart Analysis

Looking at the US Apple Podcharts Business Category Chart this week of mid August 2021, we see that the majority of the top ten listed shows are designed around an individual - almost none of whom are celebrities outside of podcasting, but rather seen as experts, everymen/women, or representatives for a given field.

Show titles tend to be highly informal, using buzzwords, slang, and even swearwords to give extra impact.

1. REAL AF with Andy Frisella (motivation, entrepreneurship)

2. Planet Money (economics explained in an easy, contemporary way with examples)

3. The Ramsey Show (personal finance)

4. Financial Feminist (personal finance with a feminist angle)

5. Jocko Podcast (motivation, leadership, entrepreneurship)

6. BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast (real estate, panel)

7. How I Built This with Guy Raz (case study interviews with successful CEOs)

8. Business Wars (stories of competition between brands)

9. The Fine Print with George Kamel (personal finance)

10. The Tim Ferriss Show (interviews with peak performers, athletes, artists, takeaways to apply in business and life)

What does this tell us? ..Audiences seek authenticity, they want to listen to someone they trust, and they want to be spoken to in a familiar, subjective manner. There are no brands featured in the titles of these shows. Top-scoring podcasts are framed around an individual and the brands are brought in as topics and guests, success stories. Of course, brands are also present through paid advertising spots too. Therefore in 2021, podcasts should be designed with a human-centric focus. As reflected in other digital channels, listeners are interested in how these hosts (who are essentially audio influencers) experience and connect with brands, rather than listen directly to the brand itself. We also see that a reliable and very frequent publishing schedule and strong marketing materials are also key.

Podcast advertising continues to see significant growth

The podcast audience is not only large and growing, but attractive: Listeners tend to be young, affluent, and educated, and generally open to advertising in podcasting. This is especially valuable for podcast ads, as the unreachable audience grows and advertisers may have more difficulty accessing younger audiences who are more likely to use technology like ad blockers across other forms of digital media.

While the pandemic decelerated podcast ad spending growth, annual spend is on track to see overall growth. We expect US podcast ad spending to increase by 38.7% YoY in 2021. And in just two years, US podcast ad spending will have nearly doubled, from $701.0 million in 2019 to $1.33 billion in 2021.

Sources:

https://www.insiderintelligence.com/insights/the-podcast-industry-report-statistics/

https://chartable.com/charts/itunes/us-business-podcasts

https://digiday.com/media/cheat-sheet-nielsen-studies-show-light-listeners-make-up-nearly-half-of-podcast-audience/