Westwood One Examines Podcasting Audience, Listening Habits

Podcasting Analysis

WESTWOOD ONE has unveiled a study on podcasting which is being presented at the INTERACTIVE ADVERTISING BUREAU's podcast upfront showcase today. For its "State of American Podcasting," WESTWOOD ONE used several sources including an IPSOS custom study from last month and EDISON's "Share of Ear" quarterly study.

WESTWOOD ONE had EDISON create a cross tabulation of 500 podcast listeners using three recent studies. That showed the audio source, time of day, demographic profile, devices used to listen and types of content used by consumers. According to WESTWOOD ONE CMO PIERRE BOUVARD, the point of the study was to answer, "How many, how often and how long."

"In the history of digital media, I don't think there has ever been a new digital platform that has so little audience data," he said. "It causes quite a bit of consternation among everyone in the ecosystem."

The study found the following:

• Podcast listeners' median age is 30, versus 45 for AM/FM radio and 57 for broadcast television networks. "This is definitely driven by millennials," BOUVARD said.

• Podcast listeners are employed, educated and have more kids in the household compared to the total U.S. sample. In fact, 61% of podcast listeners work part or full-time, and 55% have some college education or are college graduates.

• Half of total Time Spent Listening to podcasts occurs on mobile phones, followed by one-third on computers. In contrast, half of total audio consumption time occurs on AM/FM devices.

• Midday and nights are podcasting "primetime." The breakdown of listening is as follows: 29% from 7p-midnight; 29% from 10a-3p; 20% from 3-7p; and 17% from 6-10a. "Our traditional view of prime time and radio is 'drive time' or morning and afternoon," BOUVARD said. "What's really interesting is that night is prime time [for podcast listeners.] Most of listening is done at home, followed by work."

• Personalities and talk shows are the leading content consumed by podcast listeners, taking up 66% of total podcast listening, followed by news podcasts with 22%. "This is a spoken word," BOUVARD said. "People aren't listening to PANDORA or robots. They're interested in people talking ... This is a medium that lets you follow your passion, whatever that might be."

Read the entire report here.

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