Podcast Statistics You Need To Know

In recent years, podcasts have taken the digital world by storm.

With more than 546 million listeners worldwide, the podcast industry provides lucrative opportunities for both podcasters and marketers alike and offers an effective way for you to connect with your target audience.

To put it into perspective, there are currently over 6 million podcasts in the world. Crazy right?

In this guide, I’ll give you some fascinating stats about:

• Podcast Statistics at a Glance
• Podcast Growth and Trends
• Popular Podcast Platforms
• Podcast Listening Behavior Trends
• Podcast Listener Demographics
• Podcast Listeners by Country
• Popular Podcast Genres
• Popular Podcast Channels
• Video Podcast Statistics
• Podcast Advertising Revenue
• Leveraging Podcast Statistics

Podcast Statistics at a Glance

The podcasting landscape is booming, with millions tuning in for their fix of audio entertainment and education. Taking a look through all of our statistics will benefit your podcast, but if you don’t have time to go through everything, here are a few of the top podcast stats you should know.

• There are over 546 million podcast listeners worldwide.
• 47% of the US population 12+ listen to a podcast at least once a month.
• In 2024, worldwide podcast ad spending is estimated to hit $4.02 billion.
• Video podcasts are on the rise, with as many as 33% of US podcast listeners opting for watchable podcasts.
• YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts lead the pack for global podcast dominance.

Now it’s time to take a look at some fascinating podcast statistics. While podcasting may have originated in the United States, there are now listeners in every corner of the globe, and these stats highlight just how popular it is.

Let’s dive into all the latest podcast stats:

Podcast Growth and Trends

Podcast Listeners Worldwide

Number of podcast listeners worldwide reached 546.7 million in 2024, showing a 7.85% year-over-year increase.

By 2027, the number of podcast listeners worldwide forecasted to hit 651.7 million.

Let’s take a look at the number of people who have tuned into podcasts around the world over the past few years.

Source: eMarketer

Podcast Listeners in the US

In the US, an estimated 135 million consumers listened to a podcast in the last month (as of 2024). That’s an increase from 120 million monthly podcast listeners in the US in 2023.

As of 2024, 47% of the 12+ population in the US are monthly podcast listeners, showing an all-time high share to date.

Here’s a table with the percentage of monthly podcast listeners in the US since 2008:

Source: Edison Research

Popular Podcast Platforms

Most Used Podcast Platforms in the US

YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts make up 64% of weekly podcast US listeners’ most used platforms in April 2024.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of the most popular podcast platforms among weekly podcast consumers in the US as of April 2024:

Source: Cumulus Media

Preferred Podcast Platforms in the US

YouTube ranks as a preferred platform for listening to podcasts according to 33% of monthly podcast listeners in the US, followed by Spotify (24%) and Apple Podcasts (12%).

Here’s a complete list of preferred podcast platforms in the US:

Source: eMarketer

How Many Podcasts Are There on Spotify?

As of July 2024, Spotify had more than 6 million podcast titles on its platform.

Source: Spotify

Podcast Listening Behavior Trends

The go-to device for podcast listening is the smartphone, with a whopping 70% of US weekly podcast consumers choosing it, while laptop and desktop listening lag behind at only 12%.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of the most used devices for podcast consumption:

36% of weekly podcast consumers prefer audio-only podcasts, while 33% claim they like to actively watch a video podcast.

Another 31% of podcast consumers express a preference to listen to a podcast while the video is playing in the background or minimized.

Source: Cumulus Media

Podcast Listener Demographics

When it comes to podcasts, it’s interesting to unpack who is listening to the content. If you’re planning on starting your own podcast, you’ll need to determine your target audience from the get-go.

By age:

• Millennials and Gen Z make up 61.6% of US podcast listeners
  

  

• According to a 2024 Edison Research study, 59% of consumers in the US aged 12-34 had listened to a podcast in the last month.
• In the same study, 55% of Americans aged 35-54 had listened to a podcast in the past month.
• 27% of Americans aged over 55 are monthly podcast listeners.
• 29% of kids ages 6 to 12 listened to a podcast in the past month.

By gender:

• 51% of monthly podcast listeners in the US are male.
• 48% of American podcast listeners are female.
• Non-binary Americans make up 1% of monthly podcast consumers.

Source: Edison Research

Podcast Listeners by Country

Podcasts are popular worldwide, but some countries spend more time tuning into podcasts than others. Let’s have a look at how these are distributed around the globe.

The following countries have the highest share of adults listening to podcasts at least 1 hour per week:

Source: YouGov

In the US alone, there are an estimated 129.9 million podcast listeners, followed by China (117.1 million) and Brazil (51.8 million).

Here’s a table with the number of podcast listeners in select countries:

Source: eMarketer

Popular Podcast Genres

The most popular podcast genre worldwide by share of listening hours is comedy, with a 30% share.

Here’s a complete of the most popular podcast genres by share of listening hours:

Source: Statista

Popular Podcast Channels

Below, I’ve gathered stats for the top podcast channels on Spotify in some of the countries with the highest podcast listeners.

Here are the top podcast channels in the US:

1. The Joe Rogan Experience
2. Clooless Podcast
3. The Tucker Carlson Show
4. So Supernatural
5. Rotten Mango

You’ll see the top podcast channels for the UK below:

1. The Rest Is Politics: US
2. We Need To Talk with Paul C. Brunson
3. The Rest Is Politics
4. The Joe Rogan Experience
5. The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett

And finally, the top podcast channels for Australia are here:

1. The Rest Is Politics: US
2. The Joe Rogan Experience
3. The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
4. Huberman Lab
5. Rotten Mango

You can check out which Podcasts are the most popular in each country on Spotify’s podcast charts.

Source: Spotify

Video Podcast Statistics

Also known as vodcasts, video podcasts are also making waves in the podcasting industry. They combine audio and visual content, tailoring it to diverse audiences while offering something unique.

Since the podcasting industry is growing rapidly, so is vodcasting.

Here are some stats to prove it:

• As of April 2024, 33% of US weekly podcast listeners prefer watching a podcast, that’s up from 30% in April 2022.
• As of 2024, Spotify content library includes over 250,000 video podcasts, up from 100,000 in 2023.
• On Spotify, over 170 million users have watched a video podcast to date.
  

  

• In the US, close to one in three podcast monthly active users on Spotify engage with video.

Sources: Cumulus Media, Spotify

Podcast Advertising Revenue

The number of people who listen to podcasts continues to rise astronomically. But what does this mean for the amount of revenue that’s generated?

Let’s take a look at some intriguing statistics that illustrate the podcast boom!

• US podcast ad spending is estimated to reach $2.56 billion in 2024, showing a 16.4% year-over-year increase.
• In 2024, worldwide podcast ad spending is estimated to hit $4.02 billion, that’s a 16.18% increase since 2023.
• By 2027, podcast ad spending is forecasted to reach $5.03 billion.
  

  

Sources: eMarketer, Statista

How Podcast Creators Make Money

There’s clearly money to be made in podcasting.

Payment for these ads typically depends on the number of impressions the ads get, and the more listeners you have, the more impressions you’ll get.

This is how much revenue the most common types of podcast ads make:

• Host-read ads: Adverts read by hosts account for around 55% of podcasting ad revenue
• Announcer-read ads: 40% of podcast ad revenue comes from ads read by announcers
• Brand or Agency read ads: Adverts produced by brands or agencies make up only 3% of podcast advertising revenue.

But, if you don’t have many listeners yet, there are alternative methods to kickstart your earnings. These include:

• Affiliate marketing: This involves promoting a service or product and earning commissions for the sales made via your affiliate link.
• Premium content: You could try charging an extra fee for listeners to access exclusive content that’s not available on your regular podcast feed. You could set up a subscription, having certain episodes that are only available to paying subscribers. Many podcast hosts release free episodes on platforms like Apple Podcasts and also release episodes on Patreon for their paying subscribers.
• Video monetization: You could make video recordings of your podcast as well as audio recordings and then upload your videos to YouTube, where you can monetize them with YouTube ads.

Source: IAB

Leveraging Podcast Statistics

Judging by the statistics alone, it’s clear that podcasts are incredibly popular all around the world.

Judging by the statistics alone, it’s clear that podcasts are incredibly popular all around the world.

Reviewing industry stats can be a valuable way to discover insights that can inspire your content strategy. You can find out what’s trending, generate content ideas, and find new ways to outdo your competition.

An awesome way to find content ideas is by using Semrush’s Topic Research tool. The tool will show you the most trending topics related to your niche.

All you need to do is type in your topic (I went with “running shoes”), select a region, and click “Get content ideas”.

On the next page, toggle “See trending subtopics first” on, and you get a collection of “cards” containing trending topics related to your keyword.

You can then take these trends into podcast topics for upcoming podcast episodes.

Final Thoughts

From connecting with your audience to boosting your ad revenue, podcasts offer a whole new range of possibilities.

Plus, the numbers show a skyrocketing audience, diverse tastes, and some serious ad potential.