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Listening to Podcast Listeners, Shortform Video’s Future, & More

Listening to Podcast Listeners, Shortform Video’s Future, & More

January 17, 2025

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This Week in the Business of Podcasting

Hello from sunny Orlando! Today’s issue of The Download Recap comes to you from Florida as I have parachuted in to Podfest Expo. Before I scurry out to my first panel of the day, here’s the news from this week.

Transparency. Performance. Automation.

A Look at the Business Podcast Consumer

This Thursday Sounds Profitable and American Public Media published The Business Podcast Consumer, a new Podcast Landscape 2024 report. Built from a nationwide online survey of 5,071 Americans aged 18+ last June, this new study focused down on the 389 respondents who had listened to a Business podcast in the past month.

Key findings include Business podcasts being a particularly effective method for reaching younger Americans with a business interest. The mean age of Business podcast consumers is 43, and 35% of Business podcast consumers are aged 13-34. The Business podcast audience is also 34% more likely to have attained at least a 4-year degree than the 18+ U.S. population.

In a half-hour webinar presentation debuting the study, Tom Webster highlighted the finding that business podcast consumers over-index for Health and Fitness, Self-Improvement, and cite “learning new things” as the top reason they seek podcast recommendations from others. This means the world of relevant interests for brands looking to advertise on business podcasts is much wider than just financial institutions. The Business podcast consumer is actively looking to improve their lives, be it physically with fitness or mentally with self-help and education. Products and services relevant to that make a good fit for the audience.

Cracking the Case of True Crime Listeners

This Wednesday Tom Webster prepared for the release of Sounds Profitable’s latest study by putting a bow on 2024’s final study: The True Crime Podcast Listener Landscape. The piece hinges around the following infographic:

True Crime reaches 42 million Americans monthly, amounting to about 16% of Americans aged 18+. A top-five genre overall, and the number one choice for women. Webster challenges the stereotypical view of true crime podcast audiences perpetuated in pop culture (see: Only Murders in the Building), with data showing True Crime fans are far from the grim obsessive loner archetype. In fact, they are among podcasting’s most engaged and valuable audiences in several ways.

True Crime listeners consume about seven hours of podcasts a week, an hour more than the average of six hours. Multiplied out across an audience of 42 million, that extra hour goes a long way. Two-thirds of True Crime listeners value podcasts for the companionship aspect, with their favorite shows keeping them company throughout their day. Webster says this hints at a suspicion he’s had for the genre for years: crime might be secondary to the success of the field, and audiences are really there for the experience of having someone tell them an engaging story. A quote from Webster:

“But here’s what really caught my eye: true crime listeners are significantly more likely to be podcast evangelists than listeners of other genres. They don’t just consume content – they share it, recommend it, and actively bring new listeners into the medium. In fact, 86% say they’re likely to check out podcasts recommended by their social circle. That’s not just engagement – that’s advocacy.”

Podcast Ad Ads Appear in Airport

Last week from Inside Audio Marketing: Direct response marketing firm RadioActive Media has been running an ad campaign in Los Angeles International Airport that sells the concept of podcast advertising, rather than a specific show. The two week campaign started on January 6th and runs through the 19th, featuring posters with slogans like “people listen & respond to our clients’ ads” and “imagine Stern or Rogan talking about your brand.”

A claim RadioActive Media can back up, as the company works with a stable of clients including Joe Rogan and viral podcast comedian Theo Von.

While the campaign is geared to benefit one company specifically, it signals a kind of advertisement commonly found in other fields but not much in podcasting: ads about that medium’s ad effectiveness. Blank billboards with slogans like “do billboards work? This one did!” have been commonplace for decades, and audiences respond positively to them. Podcasting advertising is good at what it does, and the industry is better off for stressing that fact to potential brands and audiences alike.

Shortform Video Shakeups

This Tuesday from Tubefilter: TikTok is likely on its way out. As of this writing (which, to be clear, is Wednesday evening in anticipation of travelling for Podfest), the Supreme Court has not published their opinion on the constitutionality of legislation banning shortform video platform TikTok. A formal resolution on the ban was expected on Wednesday and did not come to fruition, with Thursday not officially scheduled for opinions to be published, leaving the ban up in the air leading into the weekend with the legislation coming into effect on Sunday the 19th.

Seeking to diversify their followings and options in case the ban goes through, TikTok content creators are embracing other apps at an accelerated pace. As of Wednesday the top app on major app outlets in the U.S. is RedNote (translated from Xiaohongshu, a Chinese social media app similar to a mixture of Instagram and Pinterest).

YouTube Shorts is positioning itself as an option. Back in October the platform announced that, in the future, all videos 3 minutes and under would retroactively become Shorts within the YouTube ecosystem. Now, according to Tubefilter, the three minute limit is officially being deployed for all users.

Quick Hits

While they may not be top story material, the articles below from this week are definitely worth your time:

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