On Air Fest is approaching fast! If you’ve not secured your tickets for three days of podcasting descending on Williamsburg, Brooklyn, now’s the time. This year’s On Air Fest roster includes Anderson Cooper, Bon Iver, and Seth Meyers. You might even catch one of Sounds Profitable’s own at the event covering the business side of podcasting, see you there!
A two-fer Wednesday today! This week, what we learned about the audience for Business podcasts from our recent collaboration with American Public Media, along with a handy one-sheet infographic that gives you all the essential details of this unique segment. First, though, I wanted to take a quick look at podcasting and how it compares to some other ad-supported platforms: namely social media and online video.
Podcasting’s Cost-effective Reach
I posted the graph below on LinkedIn last week, and it’s worth revisiting here.
Here’s a fun thing to ponder. The US Podcasting market in 2023 was $1.9 billion, according to the IAB. That spend reaches about 140 million adults 18+ every month, or 53% of the 18+ population, based on our latest estimates from The Podcast Landscape, the largest publicly-available study of podcasting in America.
I asked my old friend Perplexity to give me the advertising revenues in 2023 for several leading platforms. Perplexity isn’t perfect, but it was a consistent methodology to find decent numbers, so I went with these:
- Facebook generated $131.9 billion in advertising revenue in 2023
- Instagram generated $61.1 billion in ad revenue in 2023
- YouTube generated approximately $31.51 billion in global advertising revenue in 2023
- TikTok generated $16.1 billion in advertising revenue in 2023
- Snapchat’s advertising revenue was $4.6 billion in both 2022 and 2023
- X (formerly Twitter) generated approximately $3.31 billion in advertising revenue in 2023
- Twitch generated approximately $2.8 billion in total revenue in 2022
- Reddit generated approximately $788 million in advertising in 2023
- Discord did not generate significant revenue from ads in 2023, but is ramping up
That puts podcasting somewhere between Twitch and Reddit in ad revenue. But the graph above shows how podcasting compares in usage to these platforms – it reaches significantly more humans. I’ve talked before about how podcasting punches below its weight in terms of its share of ad-supported audio, but these are the budgets we REALLY need to question. Of course, it is a lot easier to buy Facebook ads, and we have GOT to work on that as an industry. Inertia is the enemy.
This is an imperative problem to solve, because podcasting has some of the most valuable audiences in all of ad-supported media, not the least of which is the audience for Business podcasts.
Getting Down to Business
When I first started measuring podcasting nearly 20 years ago, business content was something of a niche within a niche – mostly tech entrepreneurs talking to other tech entrepreneurs about entrepreneurship. Today, the business podcast consumer represents a fascinating and distinct segment of podcast listeners that deserves our attention, especially if you are trying to reach an affluent, educated, and highly engaged audience. As part of the Sounds Profitable Educational Series, we took a look at that audience in a webinar a couple of weeks ago (and thank you to our partners at American Public Media for supporting this effort!)
Let me give you one stat that crystallizes why this matters: while 53% of Americans listen to podcasts monthly, 15% of THAT 53% specifically seek out business content. That might not sound like much, but remember – we aren’t talking about True Crime or Comedy here. What’s more, they aren’t casual listeners: a whopping 78% of monthly business podcast consumers are weekly listeners, spending over 7 hours per week with podcasts. That’s a significant investment of time, and it speaks to something I’ve long observed about podcast listeners – when they find content that serves their goals, they make it a habit.
We’re talking about a genre that is fundamentally about professional development and education, which is why they are twice as likely as podcast consumers in general to also listen to self-improvement and health/fitness podcasts. Furthermore, the number two reason this audience chooses podcasts as a medium is specifically for business news and information. The fact that millions of Americans actively choose to learn about business through podcasting tells us something important about both the medium and this audience: this audience is driven.
But here’s what really caught my attention: the majority of business podcast consumers (56%) are more likely to try a podcast produced with corporate/brand involvement. This stands in stark contrast to what we often hear about advertising “turning off” listeners. For this audience, corporate sponsorship is actually a positive signal – it suggests credibility and relevance.
The implications here for both creators and advertisers are clear. If you’re creating business content, you’re speaking to an audience that is intentionally seeking knowledge and professional growth. They’re not just passing time – they’re investing it. And if you’re advertising to this audience, you’re reaching people who are predisposed to see your brand presence as additive to their experience, not intrusive.
This is the kind of insight that makes me bullish about podcasting’s future. While we talk a lot about growing the overall audience for podcasting, perhaps we should spend more time understanding these passionate niches where podcasting isn’t just entertainment – it’s an essential tool for personal and professional growth.
At the very least, it’s something to think about during your next commute. Along with 7.2 hours of business podcasts, apparently.
For more on this, check out the complete report and webinar for The Business Podcast Consumer, from Sounds Profitable and American Public Media, right here.
The Business Podcast Consumer is derived from The Podcast Landscape 2024, America’s largest publicly-available study of podcast listening, which was produced in partnership with American Public Media, NPR, ESPN Podcasts, BetterHelp, Wondery, SXM Media, Paramount, and Libsyn, along with our research partner Signal Hill Insights.
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