Survey finds that about 24% of US adults listen to podcasts daily or a few times a week and about 50% listen at least once a month
around 60 million people listening a few times a week or more, and 91 million people listening at least once a week.http://chartable.com/... Ryan Hoover / @rrhoover : Fascinating results in this report from @ChartableDotCom ~25% of US adults listen to podcasts daily or a few times a week 575 podcasts were started every day in 2018 87% of podcast listeners listen to most or all of each podcast they listen to http://chartable.com/... http://twitter.com/... Paul Kedrosky / @pkedrosky : Anecdotal empiricism, but my podcast consumption has fallen by at least half over the last year or so. And no, it hasn't been replaced by radio — it's been replaced by blissfully disconnected silence. http://twitter.com/... @podcastnetwerk : “People are creating podcasts for the same reason journalists are starting newsletters: podcasts are a great way to connect directly to an audience. There's no single gatekeeper, or gatekeeping algorithm, that will prevent you from reaching your audience” http://chartable.com/... Adam Singer / @adamsinger : This is one of those ‘makes you feel optimistic about the world’ stats. Podcasts (done well) are solid, meaty content for the brain and soul. http://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This Chartable survey lands between two earlier datapoints that together sketch podcasting's engagement story: podcasters' first look at Apple's Podcast Analytics already showed listeners consuming 80–90% of most shows, and Andreessen Horowitz's 2019 state-of-the-industry review framed monetization as the open question. Chartable adds the missing scale numbers — roughly 60 million frequent US listeners and 575 new shows launched per day in 2018.
The supply-demand tension is the point: a large and highly engaged audience is growing alongside an explosion of new shows, which is why later coverage tracks both the upside (47% monthly listening by 2024) and the downside (Podtrac's ~10% download drop in early 2020).
First-order effects
- Advertisers get their clearest benchmark yet for podcast reach — ~24% of US adults listening daily or several times a week — making audio buys easier to size against radio and streaming.
- The 575-shows-per-day launch rate tells aspiring creators the market is crowding fast, while the 87% completion figure signals that engaged listeners still finish what they start.
Second-order effects
- High completion rates strengthen the case for host-read and mid-roll ads priced on full listens rather than downloads, pushing networks like those charted by Podtrac toward deeper measurement.
- As listener hours concentrate among heavy users, platforms compete to own discovery — a contest Spotify later made visible by exposing top shows' follower counts in its redesign.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, podcasting consolidates from a long tail of hobbyist launches into a measured, ad-funded mainstream medium — confirmed by the climb to 47% monthly listening five years later, though events like the 2020 download slump show the trajectory is not linear.
The trend: Podcasting is maturing from a niche, self-reported medium into a mainstream, measurement-driven advertising channel whose audience keeps expanding even as supply outpaces it.