One in four American adults have listened to a news podcast in the past month, according to a study by Triton Digital. This makes News the second most-listened to genre after Comedy, which reaches 38% of American adult listeners each week. A Signal Hill Insights survey revealed similar numbers for Canadian listenership. 24% of Canadians reported having listened to a news podcast in the past month.
Why do news podcast listeners prefer podcasts over other media news sources? According to Signal Hill, podcast listeners respond to two unique benefits the medium offers: in-depth coverage and the ability to give listeners the feeling of “a personal connection to the stories”.
According to Signal Hill President Jeff Vidler, “The news podcasts with the biggest audiences typically run 20 minutes to half an hour and sometimes as long as an hour or longer. But there’s more to it than length. There’s that ‘personal connection’ we see in the research. Hearing a reporter, pundit or the person at the centre of the news offer their testimony delivers nuance and feeling you can’t get from the printed word or a TV sound bite. It also opens the door to podcasting’s superpower of storytelling.”
That podcast listeners respond so well to the News genre is good news for advertisers. SMI’s Podcast Strategist Lisa Risk says that the News genre yields consistent results for our clients. “Listeners are engaged and actively listening to shows. This results in less ad skipping, which is always beneficial to an advertiser. In addition, the demographic of the news podcast listener includes higher household income, which lends itself to higher spending power.”
Do you want to reach engaged listeners through the powerful medium of podcasts? Contact SMI today.