Edison Research interviews 1,003 Gen Z respondents (13-24) in the U.S. to field the Gen Z Podcast Listener Report 2023. The effort is sponsored by SXM Media, and we covered the teaser report from SXM a couple of weeks ago. (HERE). Now, Edison releases the full detail — 45 pages of GenZ-specific metrics around podcast listening, discovery, acceptance of advertising, and more. Downloading is recommended; get it HERE.
Broadly Speaking
Here are some overview takeaways provided by Edison:
Frequency
All survey participants are, at least, monthly podcast listeners. More spectacularly, 75% of the cohort are weekly listeners. An even higher participation (80%) is registered for the youngest 13-17 group.
That weekly number is remarkable when compared to Edison’s The Infinite Dial 2023 report — the annual benchmark study of listening behavior in the American population. The Infinite Dial population represents American teens and adults of all ages, where the weekly listening metric is 31%. Below are the comparison graphics:
One reason for the extraordinary weekly listening numbers could be early-in-life starts. Sixteen percent of Gen Z respondents started consuming podcasts as children. And 57% started as teenagers. That’s 73% of the cohort beginning their podcast consumption before age 20.
And a related metrics: 32% of those who listened to podcasts when they were children consume a mean of 10.6 hours per week.
Video & Genre
What about video, you ask (because all podcast studies examine video consumption)? Eighty-four percent of the entire respondent group listen or watch podcasts with a video component.
All right, what about podcast genres? Comedy rules (48% have “ever” listened) … keeping in mind that many shows in that category are interview talkcasts where comedy is not the point. True Crime is number three.
Receptivity to Ads
Part of this study seeks to discover how young listeners receive and respond to podcast ads. There is a ream of detailed metrics in this work which indicate that young listeners are friendly to ads, whether host-read or pre-recorded.
Here are the takeaways:
