Digimind monitors and analyses podcasts worldwide!

In 2018, on the occasion of our annual Trend Guide, one of the experts interviewed spoke about "The podcast revival": Society is seeing the return of an old information model that everyone thought was buried. Podcast radio: a hybrid genre where old audio communication codes meet new types of content such as debates and analyses to form a growing market. In fact, for the past 5 years, this format has been growing steadily in terms of the number of podcasts and audience...

Digimind has been strengthening its TV and Radio monitoring and collecting and analysing podcasts from all over the world thanks to its recent membership to the Onclusive media monitoring group! This way, you can capture competing brands mentioned in podcasts (or that communicate via their dedicated podcast), discover new products and services, new trends, new consumer practices or new opinion leaders and influencers. It is also a way to find out about your competitors' or partners' campaigns within the podcasts. 

What is a podcast ? 

Podcasts in key figures and statistics

Podcasts in the world : the figures

Number of listeners and consumption patterns

Podcasts and brands

Social media listening of podcasts by Digimind

What is a podcast?

Podcasting is a way of distributing files (audio, video or other) called podcasts on the Internet. The term "podcast" is formed from the words "iPod" and "broadcasting". Although the concept has been around since 2000, Ben Hammersley, a journalist for the Guardian in the UK, proposed the term "podcasting" in 2004. The following year, Apple appropriated the term and integrated it into iTunes 4.9. 

Podcasts, both audio and video, are available on the Internet and are broadcasted by different types of broadcasters and automatically received in a player. The listener can then listen to them directly on this player, download them to their personal computer or transmit them to their equipment (PC, smartphone, etc.). A podcast can be listened to on music applications such as Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Deezer or Amazon Music.

Podcasts in key figures and statistics

Podcasts in the world : the figures

According to a July 2021 eMaketer study on global podcast consumption, the number of podcast listeners worldwide has been steadily increasing and is expected to grow further in the coming years. In 2020, the number of podcast listeners worldwide was 332.2 million, while in 2021 this number increased to 383.7. In less than 3 years, the number of global podcast listeners has increased by 70% and is expected to reach 504.9 million by the end of this year. 

Number of podcast listeners worldwide from 2019 to 2024 (in millions)

There are 2.4 million podcasts worldwide, according to Demand Sage (1). To understand the significance of this figure, it is worth noting that just three years ago the number was only around 600K, as reported by Podcast Insights. In terms of total podcast episodes, Demand Sage estimates it to be around 66 million.

North America is currently the most receptive to podcasts, with over 40% of internet users logging on at least once a month. Latin America and Western Europe are also showing increasing interest in the medium. However, the adoption of podcasts is slower in parts of the Asia-Pacific region.

The forecast growth in podcast listeners by major world region to 2026 is as follows:

Podcast listeners worldwide, by region/country, 2022-2026 - Insider Intelligence

The world's leading podcast publisher in September 2021 based on unique streams and downloads was iHeartRadio with 281.72 million streams and downloads in that month. National Public Radio (NPR) was second with 160.7 million.

Top podcast publishers worldwide in September 2021, by streams and unique downloads

Podcasts in the United Kingdom

Number of listeners and consumption patterns

In 2022, 21.2 million people in the UK listened to podcasts, an increase of approximately 11% in one year. To put this figure into perspective, there were 67.8 million internet users in the UK in January of 2022 (2). The amount of people listening to podcasts in the UK has increased by 40% since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Statista predicts that by 2026 the podcast audience in the UK will surpass 28 million.

Podcasts have become one of the most popular forms of audio entertainment in the UK in the last decade: 56% of people are listening to three or more podcasts a week, 79% of which listen to podcasts on their smartphones. 37% of Brits are listening to podcasts once a day or more, while 70% listen more than once a week. In addition, Statista found that 44% of people listen to podcasts while driving, and 34% listen to podcasts in their free time (3).

Podcast sharing and recommendations

48% of people in the UK have reported listening to podcasts to learn something new, while 39% of listeners simply listen to relax. 30% of the population finds new podcasts through word-of-mouth, while 18% find out about a new podcast through radio programs (4).

The most popular podcast genres in the UK with 25-34-year-olds in terms of the number of downloads are comedy, followed by football and entertainment (5).

Most popular podcast genres in the UK with 25-34 year olds by downloads Source : Statista

Who listens to podcasts in the UK?

Age groups and gender

52% of podcast followers are men, while 48% are women. In addition, Statista shows that 17% of podcast listeners are between 15 and 24 years old, 24% between 25-34 years old, 40% between 35 and 54 years old and 19% are 55 or older (6).

Podcast listeners in the UK

Monitor and analyse TV, Radio and Podcasts in one platform

Podcasts and brands

Brands invest in podcasts through advertising

A global survey of marketers conducted in 2021, found that the net share of marketers planning to increase their online video advertising budgets in 2022 was 76%. The second fastest growing type of advertising content was influencer-produced or published content, with 71% of marketers increasing their budgets on this medium. Podcasts were already the 7th largest channel for advertising with 45% of marketers planning to increase their budget. 

According to IAB Europe, digital audio is set to become a €1.5 billion advertising business in Europe by the end of 2023, with podcast advertising spending expected to reach €207.2 million (7). In addition, a study found that long-term retention of advertisements is 36% to 39% stronger for audio advertisements compared to video advertisements. 

Social media listening of podcasts by Digimind

Social media listening of podcasts: a bouquet of international audio sources, your personalised queries = your alerts on your favourite podcasts according to your favourite themes

The Digimind Social solution allows you to easily integrate podcasts into your social media listening strategy.

You can add podcast monitoring by choosing the language