My (Brief) Thoughts On The #InfiniteDial 2019 Report - The Podcast Report Episode #163

My initial thoughts on The Infinite Dial 2019 report. It's the podcast report, episode 163. Show notes, links, conversation and more@thepodcastreport.com 16 3. Hey, it's Paul. I am back and today was infinite dial 2019 day. If you don't know anything about Infinite Dial, it is a yearly event that the folk over at Edison Research put on where they explain what is happening in the larger scale of Internet audio. It's not just a podcast report. And that's one of the things I really appreciate it is how Internet audio happens. And the name essentially comes from what happens when we leave the world of one station in one town to an Internet that gives us essentially an infinite dial. Podcasting doesn't stand alone. I appreciate that the report reflects that. Let's chat about some of my favorite numbers. I'll probably in another episode go deeper into this, but I wanted to get this out the night of the report because I thought it would be fun. So here are a couple of numbers. Number one, 15 million fewer Facebook users than in 2017 couple of years. The 12 to 34 demographic jumps from 79% to 62% or 82 million users to 65 million users. Facebook is not the juggernaut that it once was. It is going down now. Some other things are taking it over. But what was interesting was social media is becoming less and less a part of the landscape. Are other things becoming less and less a part of the landscape? No, not so much. People are buying multiple smart speakers. They're not buying just one Alexa. They're not buying just one Google Home. They're buying multiple smart speakers to listen to audio. Podcasting is going to become part of that. It already is. It's going to get bigger. I have been bullish on this since day one and everything in the report told me to be even more and more bullish. 67% of America, 189 million listen to audio online monthly. 169 million listen to audio online weekly. This is huge. And the fact of the matter is, and this is why I brought this up earlier, the reach of online audio is actually bigger than social media. The reach of online audio is bigger than social media. We know how important social media is. There are all the big social media events. Online audio is bigger than that. 16.43 hours is the average time listening to online audio. Now that doesn't necessarily enter into the near addicted ranges that people do with social media, but 16.43 hours. Interesting stuff. A jump from 19% to 26% increase of podcasting in cars. One of the things they pointed out in the Infinite Dial report this year was that people are slower to buy in dash entertainment systems than they are phones, tablets, that kind of thing. So that 7% jump very, very big. Pandora, 89% awareness in this country. Now we'll go deeper into Pandora and what that means. But 89% of Americans have heard of the term Pandora. We take other terms like iheart, which those of us in the know, those of us fancy people I heart. 74%. Pandora's still big. It's still number one with the bullet. Now, Pandora has not completely released their podcasting engine yet. Yes, it's great that the podcast report is in there, but not everybody else is. But regardless, more people know Pandora than anything else. Stop thinking cool. When you think podcast and podcast audiences, think where the audience is now. Spotify has grown considerably, and that's important to think about, but Pandora is still the big winner. But what's funny is with Pandora versus Spotify versus Apple Music versus Google Music versus all those things, YouTube Music is going up. Google has made a conscientious attempt to get people to use YouTube as a music discovery engine, and that's actually doing better than the people podcasting over at Google. YouTube is a definitive platform. YouTube is a definitive player. Those numbers are going up. Podcasters need to think about what that means and how to respond to it. Now, let's talk some of my favorite numbers. Number one, familiarity with the term podcasting. 197 million Americans, 70% versus 64% last year. That's a 6% increase. It's absolutely massive. But even more important, or Perhaps more interesting, 51% of America has ever listened to a podcast. That means that more people have listened to a podcast than have not listened to a podcast. We're not just mainstream, we are now popular. There is a bigger audience now than there has ever been, and that's pretty fantastic. 32 million people been listening to podcasts monthly, up from 26 monthly just last year. Podcasting grew in all three demographics. But what's interesting is it jumped from 30% to 40% in the 12 to 24 demographic. Finally, the most interesting thing is Spotify listeners. 12 to 24, 53% of them listen to podcasts. If someone in the 12 to 24 demographic is listening to Spotify, it is more likely than not that they're listening to podcasts. An American is more likely than not to have listened to a podcast. We're in a really good place again. I wanted to get this out and I wanted to try some new tech. I've got a new toy that I'm playing with for recording, and we're going to go deeper into this in the coming weeks. But I owe you an episode and I wanted to get this out. Thank you, Infinite Dial, for doing your thing. Thank you to Infinite Dial for showing us how serious we need to take podcasting. It is a joy and a pleasure every year to be part of this event. Um, just the participatory part. Um, it is my Super Bowl. I don't know if necessarily I'd say that Tom Webster from Edison Research is my Tom Brady, but this is a fantastic event. The numbers were up this year. But more important than the numbers up, these are numbers that are up not just because someone feels that they're up or they take a random poll. This is good scientific polling by a company and organization that does this, that has proved many, many of the things that we've been chatting about on this show. Many of the things that we've been talking about on this show. Definitely head out to infinitedial.com. definitely read the whole thing. Download all the slides. It's eye candy. It's a ton of fun. But we're at a really good place with podcasting. I want to give these highlights. We'll chat soon. Bye.