Deezer and Spotify report triple-digit growth in podcast listening

Research is showing lots of growth in the podcast space, and now some individual platforms are corroborating those trends. Both Spotify and Deezer released internal data about their rates of podcast consumption, and both services are finding successes with that audio format.

Deezer introduced podcasts to its audio service in 2015, and it has 23,000 shows in its library. Global monthly streams of podcasts rose 146% since 2017 and listeners spend an average of 48 minutes with podcasts. Top genres varied by market, with crime most popular in the UK, news and storytelling leading in the U.S. The company projected that storytelling, music commentary, and education podcasts would see rising popularity in 2019. Storytelling had the most growth for a genre, rising 187% in 2018.

“It’s fantastic to see podcasts continuing to go from strength to strength this year, with the ongoing creation of captivating and original content,” said Chris Baughen, vice president of content and formats for Deezer. “It’s incredibly important to cater to listener’s demands and we are ensuring each country has podcast content specific to their own tastes and languages, such as our Deezer Originals.”

Deezer previously owned podcast network Stitcher, which is now part of the E.W. Scripps media empire and was recently rebranded as its flagship podcast brand.

Spotify’s Brian Benedik talked about both podcasts and video during a conference in Germany. The company’s global podcast growth was 367%. “If we can figure out a recommendation around podcasts and serve them up to users, that would be great,” Benedik said, also noting that video is Spotify’s fastest-growing format.

Neither source gave specifics about how it calculated that growth. Number of people who listen, hours or minutes listened, and shows available are all wildly different metrics, and while triple-digit percentages of growth are good news for any statistic, it isn’t the clearest representation of how well podcasts are performing on these music-focused platforms.