Edison Research completed its Share of Ear research for Q1 2023, and as usual Cumulus Media / Westwood One disclosed a broad array of metrics from this subscriber-only work. See the blog post HERE, which provides a link to a more complete deck.
The entire bundle contains 88 slides, and is a worthy download. Here, a few points of interest regarding the audience-share comparison of podcasting with AM/FM listening. It’s important to remember that Share of Ear measures time spent, not numerical reach by person. It illuminates how different cohorts of American listeners spend their overall listening time.
Podcasting claimes 17% of ad-supported audio. That measurement draws a clean contrast between podcasts and AM/FM radio. In the chart below, Pandora, Spotify, and SiriusXM are also included (in their ad-supported products). Note that the 18-34 breakout is much higher, while the AM/FM share is much lower.
In what the deck calls a “Head Snapper,” AM/FM radio streaming’s share is much larger than the combined ad-supported Spotify-plusPandora audience. To be sure all three numbers are small:
In a year-over-year view (Q1 2022 vs Q1 2023) the reach of podcasts among the 18-49 group has leaped upward to an unprecedented degree (within the scpe of this study). Thirty-four percent of this demo listens daily to podcasts:
Again, go HERE for the 88-slide deck which covers all types of audio and audience breakouts.