Munich-based media production, entertainment, and marketing group Seven.one Audio has released its Podcast 2025 Report. It features metrics and principles about the German and U.S. podcast markets, and the advertisements which power the podcasting industry, and 36 pages of metrics which promote values of the podcast channel.
After an introductory slew of metrics which define podcasting in various ways, the presentation delivers key learnings in several categories:
- The Podcast Market generally
- Usage Habits
- Female Reach
- Video Podcasts
- Advertising Impact
YOY In Brief
A very brief year-over-year set of learnings is presented before the topical sections. Here are those four points:
- The use of podcasts continues to grow sharply, particularly daily use.
- The podcast user structure has changed — podcast listeners are female and young.
- The podcast is is the only medium that is continuously growing in terms of duration of use.
- The use of video podcasts is at a low level.
How Long and How Often
Podcast consumption is growing — hardly fresh news on its own, but a couple of connected graphs give more details about duration (listening minutes) and frequency (daily, weekly, monthly).
Shoulder to Shoulder with Radio
Keeping in mind that these figures pertain to the German consumer audience, we see with interest that podcast reach is projected to exceed radio’s reach for the first time, as framed in percentages below.
This graph covers ages from 18 to 49. We speculate that radio might show stronger reach in the 50+ audience, not represented here.
New and Varied
We learn that nearly 13,000 new podcasts were launched in 2024 in the German market. (Society & Culture was the leading genre.) Interestingly, “Podcasts without genre” was as close second, representing over 1,800 new shows lacking a central and guiding topical thrust.
Supply / Demand Discrepancy
Seven.one tells us that discrepancies exist, in which some categories experience high consumer demand for relatively few existing shows. True Crime is an example, as illustrated below.
Key Results: Podcast Market
Five central learnings are derived by the study authors, applied to the German podcast market:
- The popularity of podcasts continues to grow: daily usage is increasing in particular.
- For the first time, the reach of podcasts exceeds that of radio in the young target group of ages 18–29.
- The advertising spend on podcasts is well behind TV and social media in relation to duration of use.
- Podcasting is the only medium that has grown continuously in terms of duration of use since 2019.
- Podcasts create incremental reach, both to TV and to social media.
This deep and detailed German study proceeds to examine five new topics:
- Usage habits,
- Female reach as a special focus,
- The essential endurance of audio podcasts,
- A section on video podcasts (described as “playing a minor role)
- Masteringt he host-read ad
For anyone interested in single-market metrics (Germany in this case,) we recommend digging deeper than the gloss we have provided. We obtained the original (in German, but translatable) HERE.