Acast study explores the where and when of podcast listening

Acast/Adweek

Podcast network Acast has investigated some listening trends for the audio format. Its research looked at the times of day when people are most likely to tune into a show and which topics are most popular in different parts of the United States. Adweek published the results, including two infographics of the trends.

California, New York, New Jersey, Texas and Virginia were the five states with the highest number of podcast listens, followed by Illinois, Washington, Florida, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. Those states demonstrated a range of most popular topics. Across the top states, business and society/culture podcasts were each favored by nine of the ten.

Acast’s results also revealed that 8 a.m. and 11 p.m. were the times with the highest spikes in podcast listening. There were also bumps at 7 a.m. and 11 a.m.

Oskar Serrander, Acast’s general manager in the U.S., spoke with Adweek about the results. “As home devices become more popular, people can enjoy hearing the morning or evening news in the same way they used to use the radio,” he said. “We all have some version of screen fatigue these days, so being able to just take a moment to listen may also be fueling this podcast expansion.”

He also opined that there is still space for new shows to succeed, even though there are already many big movers. “Because this industry is still growing rapidly, we can start to utilize user behavior data and consumption patterns to help people discover shows more easily,” Serrander said. “New formats are coming out all the time, and listeners are more engaged in shows than ever.”

Anna Washenko