Radio catch-up shows most popular podcast genre
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Radio shows are the most downloaded genre of podcasts, accounting for 101.3 million downloads between January and November.
True crime placed second, with 67.6 million, followed by comedy (63.5 million) and news (51.9 million).
The insights come from the Australian Podcast Ranker, released via Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) and Triton Digital.
The data showed there were more than 420.8 million podcast livestreams or downloads throughout the period.
Thursday was the most popular day for podcast activity, accounting for 17% of downloads, while Sunday, on 10%, was the least popular.
The number of unique devices used to listen is now around 3.3 million per week, up from 1.8 million when the ranker launched in October last year.
An average of 1.9 hours of podcast content was downloaded per device per week in November, up from 1.7 hours in January.
CEO of CRA, Joan Warner, said it was no surprise radio shows were at the top of the charts.
“202 has been an outstanding year for podcasting, with the Australian Podcast Ranker now tracking 2,600 active podcasts across a wide range of genres and publishers,” she said.
“Radio show podcasts were the most active category in 2020, with 101.3 million downloads. This is no surprise as it echoes the strong popularity of radio through the pandemic and reflects the established audiences these shows already have.”
Triton Digital’s director of market development for APAC, Richard Palmer, said the Australian Podcast Ranker served a need in the market for a consistent, independently-verified report on podcast performance.
“The Australian Podcast Ranker is being embraced and adopted by advertisers, providing valuable insight into both the top podcasts as well as the size, scale, advertising opportunities and key publishers in the market. We look forward to adding additional publishers and shows to the ranker in the coming months.”