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News podcast listeners are more likely to use YouTube to watch videos and consume and find podcasts, compared to non-news podcast listeners, according to a report by NPR, NPM and Sounds Profitable.
“The News Podcast Consumer,” which came out last week, looked at news podcast listeners to analyze their demographics, media behaviors and consumption habits. The data is a segment of the “2024 Podcast Landscape Report” from Sounds Profitable and Signal Hill Insights, which surveyed over 5,000 Americans. Of those, nearly 800 respondents had consumed a news podcast in the last month.
The findings — which also show news podcast listeners are more likely to consume video podcasts — shouldn’t come as a surprise, given the recent dominance of YouTube as a podcast platform and the growth of video podcasts.
Last week, YouTube said it now has 1 billion monthly active podcast users, Semafor reported. That puts it ahead of audio platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts. In October, Edison Research found YouTube was the most popular podcast platform in the U.S., above audio platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Execs at news publishers like The New York Times, Bloomberg and Vox Media told Digiday their podcast audience has grown thanks to recent pushes in video production. Execs at those companies — as well as NPR and Fortune — said they plan to continue to produce more video podcast content this year.
According to the report last week, 50% of news podcast listeners had spent more time with podcasts in the last year, compared to 42% of non-news consumers.
Here are some other key findings from the report:
- 87% of news podcast listeners say they consume video podcasts, compared to 81% of non-news podcast listeners.
- 59% of news podcast listeners say they have spent more time on YouTube in the last 12 months, compared to 47% of non-news podcast listeners.
- YouTube was the top platform for podcast consumption for news consumers, with 44% saying they were using that platform “most often,” compared to 38% of non-news users.
- The second platform was Spotify (17%), followed by Apple Podcasts (9%).
- 65% of news podcast listeners said YouTube how they find new podcasts, aside from personal recommendations. That’s compared to 49% of non-news podcast consumers. (Podcasters have been saying for years how YouTube is a platform that helps get their shows discovered by new listeners, thanks to its algorithm.)
- 93% of news podcast listeners had consumed video on YouTube in the past month, compared to 78% of non-news consumers.
- News consumers also over-indexed on monthly usage of other online video platforms, with 51% watching Instagram Reels and 48% on TikTok, compared to 40% and 39% of non-news consumers, respectively.
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