Currently there are about 450,000 active podcast shows that have published recent episodes, according to a Wall Street Journal report, which quoted Podcast Industry Insights. However, just the top 25 reach nearly half of all US weekly listeners, according to data from Edison Research.
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Which is the most popular podcast platform in the world?
Spotify, the most popular podcast platform in the world, started off by betting $1 billion on podcasting in 2019, but it soon struggled to make it profitable. Pressure from Wall Street therefore led to Spotify consolidating its studios and culling some shows.
However, the ad market also slowed after this. Rising interest rates led to struggling direct-to-consumer brands that anchored the podcast ad business and Apple’s software update that stopped the auto-downloading of podcast episodes, led to a decline of 20-30% in podcast downloads.
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Despite this, Spotify’s introduction of video in 2020 took off, and now, it has a quarter million podcasters uploading video to its service.
The advertising revenue for podcasts is expected to grow 12% this year. This means it’ll grow up to $2 billion and reach nearly $2.6 billion by 2026, according to IAB and PwC.
How many Americans and what percentage of the population listens to podcasts?
Close to 100 million Americans aged 12 and older, listen to podcasts ever week, according to the Edison report. The population of the US is currently 341.94 million according to Worldometer data.
That means nearly 30% of all Americans listen to podcasts every week.
How many Indians and what percentage of the population listens to podcasts?
India is currently the third-largest market for podcast listeners, but only 12% of Indians actually listen to them, according to a Storyboard 18 article which quoted ‘The Podcast Pulse’, a report on podcast consumption in India developed by UNPAC Research (OPC) Pvt. Ltd. with the support of Ideabrew Studios.
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However, the data included only 2,170 individuals across 10 cities in India, including Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Indore, Patna, and Jaipur, out of which, 1,800 were comprehensively interviewed.
What are the top 10 most listened podcasts in the US?
According to the Edison Podcast Metrics 2024 Q1, the top 10 podcasts in the US include:
1. The Joe Rogan Experience
2. Crime Junkie
3. The Daily
4. New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce
5. Dateline NBC
6. This American Life
7. Call Her Daddy
8. SmartLess
9. Morbid
10. Stuff You Should Know