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School of Podcasting - Plan, Launch, Grow and Monetize Your Podcast


Mar 9, 2015

Libsyn.com Podcasting Stats from 1.9 Billion to 2.6 Billion downloads

1.9 Billion in 2013

2.5 Billion in 2014

8 Million daily audience requests for podcast during the fourth quarter of 2014

Unique monthly audience members continued to grow to 41 million individuals in 2014 versus 25 million at the beginning of 2013, marking another milestone achievement

That represents a 37% increase in annual download requests.

The accelerated growth for podcast audience engagement continues with more podcasts being distributed to Mobile devices.  Of the 2.6 billion downloads, over 1.6 billion (63%) were requested from Mobile devices, with a 5.4 to 1 ratio for iOS versus Android.  At the end of 2014 the WTF with Marc Maron app for iOS, Android and Windows Phone 8 had been downloaded by over 225,000 unique user accounts.

New Podcasters

Over 22,000 podcast shows use the Libsyn Network for distribution and monetization services for over 2.1 million unique, active episodes.  New account sign-ups are also at an all-time high with the addition of over 2,300 new shows already in 2015.

Edison Podcasting Stats

35% of Cell Phone Users have connected it to their car to listen

33% of people (approximately 89 Million) have listened to a podcast

55% of people consume podcasts on their smart phone

17% of the US listen to podcasts on a monthly basis (46 million Americans)

10% of people 12+ have listened to podcast in a last week. (27 million Americans)

Of the 10% who listen to podcasts, 23% listen to three, 22% listen to 2, 17% listen to four or five, and 15% listen to eleven or more (averaged 6 per week)

45% percent of podcast listeners have a college degree (compared to 33% of the total population)

52% of podcast listeners make more than $10o,000 a year

NBC won their evening with a 3% rating. The serial podcast was listened to by #5 of the population.

71% (192 million) of Americans have a smart phone

81% of people 25-54 own a smart phone

AM/FM Radio being used in the car dropped 5% from 2014 to 2015

Edison research

Podcast Awards Website Stats

32.8% of nominees had no email address or form to contact them (twitter, facebook, Google+ do not count)

26.3% had no iTunes icon on their website.

and yet what do people want most? Comments and interaction from their audience, and more subscribers/downloads……

25.3% had no way to download the file

23.5% of podcasters nominted for a podcast award did NOT have an RSS icon/link on their website (on the front page)

there is more to podcasting than itunes. Give people and RSS so they can subscribe on whatever they want to use.

22.8% of the nominees had an RSS feed that was invalid

it doesn’t do any good to have a feed if it doesn’t work (case in point soundcloud)

17.2% had no visible player to click play when you land on their website (many you had to dig to find one)

14.4% Had no social media to share you content

One other things that were interesting. Some of the top podcasts of 2014 (Serial, Startup, and Reply All) have no iTunes buttons on their website. Yet they dominate.

When People Find Your Podcast They Will Binge Listen

Today I play a clip from Elsie Escobar who (along with Jessice Kupferman) produce the She Podcasts podcast (she is also the co-host of The Feed). The clip is Elsie talking about how she discovered the "What I Wore When" Glamore podcast through word of mouth (the co-host of the Feed Rob Walch's wife liked the show), and when she found it - she downloaded all the episodes.

Because of My Podcast

Michael from the Recovered Podcast talks about how his podcast is helping people get off drugs. For more information go to www.recoveredcast.com