A new research report from Coleman Insights and Amplifi Media is titled From Explosion To Evolution: The State Of Video Podcasting. Findings were released and presented in a webinar hosted by Jay Nachlis (VP / Consultant, Coleman Insights) and Steve Goldstein (Founder / CEO, Amplifi Media). The 25-minute discussion was illustrated by 40 presentation slides.
The study and the presentation were sponsored by ESPN.
This is Part 1 of our coverage, corresponding with the first part of the study which focuses on consumers. Part 2 surveys creators, and will follow in Part 2 of our write-up.
The Agenda
Key thrusts of this knowledge session were concerned with how podcasts are defined, how consumers listen, how show discovery has changed, how creators are coping with a quickly evolving medium, and — above all — YouTube.
While the webinar’s attendee list was not visible, a Q&A session at the end indicated that creators were engaged in the information.
Survey Specs
In the survey whose results were presented today, all respondents were podcast consumers, monthly or more frequently. One thousand such volunteers were recruited, all in the U.S. Ages ranged from 15-64, and complied with quotas for gender, ethnicity, and region based on stable population metrics.
Definition
Though podcasting is universally known as an audio medium, the rise of video as both a creative and listening option, is reaching a level of saturation. This study asked: “How would you define a podcast?” And one answer is tracked across time: “Can be audio-only or video.” That flexible perspective has increased from 75% to 85% of responses over 1.5 years as shown below.
Consumption
Along with defining podcasts, the related question is how they are consumed. This survey group was asked, and the responses are given overall,and the GenZ response pulled out, as shows below. Easy to see that Gen Z over-indexes for “mostly video,” while the overall only 16% claim to listen to only audio.
Given all that, it’s worth noting that a full 77% of consumers use both audio and video. But when asked about consumption apps, YouTube was the clear winner — not forgetting that you can play a podcast video without necessarily watching it. Anyway, here’s how the used services stack up:
Very interestingly, respondents who did not mention YouTube were asked to account for that: “You didn’t mention you use YouTube to consume podcasts. Are you aware Youtube offers podcasts?” The yes/no on that question was 64%/36%.
To say that Amplifi and Coleman did a deep dive on YouTube would be to understate the focus — not surprisingly for a survey about ideo podcasting. We learn a range of things:
- Which devices are used (smartphone wins)
- Are favorite podcasts on YouTube (two-thirds yes)
- Premium subscriber? (only 33% yes)
- Do you “subscribe” to specific podcasts on YouTube? (61% yes)
YouTube vs. Spotify
In a single slaying graphic, the authors of this study pit YouTube against Spotify:
Is that result because the survey respondents didn’t know that Spotify offers video podcasts? Nope; the question asked and definitively answered: 67% overall are aware, and 74% of Spotify users are aware.
