Podcasting continues to attract audience, advertisers and buzz. And while measurement remains an issue, new qualitative data from Nielsen Scarborough shows America’s growing podcast nation stacks up as a qualified—and valuable—audience for advertisers and marketers.
The profile of an average podcast listener is young, educated and affluent. According to the latest Nielsen Audio Today Report, the demographic sweet spot for the podcast audience is persons 25-44. The new data shows persons 25-34 to hold the biggest slice of the podcast audience (28.2%), followed by persons 35-44 (21.2%). After that it’s persons 18-24 (18.1%) and persons 45-54 (16.1%).
Consumers who watch, listen to or download a podcast are significantly more likely to be higher educated, have higher incomes and be career-minded—another reason they are a highly desirable target for advertisers. Podcast listeners are 45% more likely to have a college degree, 56% more likely to have done some post-graduate work and 68% more likely to have completed post-graduate education. Along with being more educated, they also fall into higher income brackets. Podcast listeners are 32% more likely to have household incomes north of $75,000, 37% more likely to have household incomes of $100,000 or greater and 45% more likely to be in the $250,000-plus range.
Podcasters are also 41% more likely to be while-collar, 51% more likely to hold management positions and 60% more likely to work as a professional.
“We’ve never had more options to hear our favorite music, stories, sports and commentary, and few media prove this the way podcasts do, as this is one realm where there is literally something for everyone,” the new report states.
And adding one more shade to the picture, podcast listeners, while being highly educated and well paid, also appreciate a good laugh. Comedy is the most popular podcast genre, listened to by 48% of podcast users, followed by educational podcasts (40%), news (38%), sports (27%), politics (22%), gaming (18%), technology (16%) and sci-fi (16%).
“Every year the audio landscape in America continues to expand as more consumers tune in to more (and more) audio across many different platforms,” Nielsen says in the report. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the ongoing trend of streaming audio becoming a regular activity for a growing number of Americans. From Jan.-Dec. 2016, 23 million more people listened to streaming audio on a smartphone, according to Nielsen’s Electronics Mobile Measurement panel. The number of persons 18+ increased from 80.91 million in January to 104.14 million in December. Meanwhile streaming audio on a tablet remained comparatively flat from 29.10 million in January to 30.39 million in December. Among devices, PCs have the least audio streaming consumption although listening on desktops and laptops did grow year-over-year from 19.64 million in January to 23.46 million.
While streaming and podcasting keep their upward trajectory, broadcast radio listening remains solid as ever and its weekly audience continues to grow. Says Nielsen, “As the audio pie grows, Americans are carving out more and more time each day to listen.”