Podcasting By the Numbers

Podcasters are often known for opinion, analysis and fresh takes on issues. But behind the content, there’s a numbers game surrounding the entire industry.

4.1 million different podcasts covering more than 132 million episodes; that’s an admittedly incomplete directory from The Podcast Business Journal.

Listeners? Expected to hit nearly 505 million in 2024, up 8.7 percent over 2023.

 The top one percent barrier stands at nearly 5,000 downloads a week, and more than two dozen major services exist strictly to host and support podcast production. 

An average of about 200,000 podcasts publish one or more new episodes each week, and about 132,000 more produce at least monthly. 

Recent figures show more than 469,000 episodes added in a single week in early February, and 1.94 million new individual episodes dropping in the preceding month.

Other pertinent facts and figures:

Predictions say there will be 504.9 million podcast listeners around the globe by the end of 2024.

The U.S. has the most active listeners in the world.

The global podcast industry is currently worth $23.56 billion.

79% of Americans are aware of podcasting, up from only 20% awareness in 2006.

62% of Americans have listened to a podcast, with the average American listening to eight podcasts every week.

 Spotify is the largest platform, streaming 33.7% of podcasts, followed closely by Apple at 27.6% of all shows.

72% of podcast listeners are highly engaged with content.

Listeners believe podcast hosts are 64% more trustworthy compared to other influencers. 

51% of marketers are including podcasts in marketing strategies.

Video podcasting has increased from 39,194 in November 2022 to 50,800 video podcasts by May 2023.

Studies have shown that video podcasts are 50% more engaging than audio-only podcasts.