Triton Digital has released its second annual U.S. Podcast Report. The report provides insights into the evolving U.S. podcast landscape throughout 2023, including listening habits and audience demographic data, top podcasts, networks, and debuts from the Triton U.S. Podcast Ranker.
According to the report, the number of monthly podcast listeners continues to rise, with 12% growth over the past two years. In 2023, 40% of the U.S. population reported listening to a podcast within the past month. This growth is reflected across all segments of the population, especially those late to adopting podcasts as a preferred medium.
Other notable findings include the following:
- Older Americans and women are listening to podcasts at a faster rate, with a 22% increase in listeners over the age of 55 and a 19% increase in female listeners over the age of 18 the past two years.
- Top podcast genres of 2023 were News (22% of downloads), True Crime (18%) and Comedy (15%). Of True Crime podcast listeners, 67% were female; of Comedy podcast listeners, 62% were male; and of News podcast listeners, 58% were male.
- The top sales networks of 2023 in the Triton U.S. Podcast Ranker were SiriusXM Podcast Network at #1, NPR at #2, and Wondery at #3. The top podcast of the year was NPR News Now (NPR).
“2023 was another year of significant growth for the podcast industry, and with increasing female and over 55+ audiences, we can expect more content production to serve those groups in the coming year,” said Daryl Battaglia, SVP of measurement products and strategy for Triton Digital. “As podcast listenership continues to rise and reach new audiences, we’ll continue to provide our customers with in-depth insights around podcast consumption and listener habits in the coming year.”
The report incorporates data from multiple sources, including the IAB Tech Lab-certified Triton Podcast Metrics service, which measures server log data from the Triton Omny Studio platform and other industry hosting platforms. It also includes data from the Triton Podcast Metrics Demos+ solution, which provides demographics and audience characteristics for podcasts of all sizes, and the Demos+ survey of 12,000 monthly podcast listeners in the U.S., done in collaboration with Signal Hill Insights.
To read or download the full 2023 U.S. Podcast Report, click here.
These stories may interest you
Inside Podcasting: For the love of sound