ARE LISTENERS TO PUBLIC RADIO PODCASTS DIFFERENT THAN OTHER PODCAST LISTENERS?

On Tuesday, Edison Research released its new survey about the perception of commercials by podcast Super Listeners. Publishers and ad sellers are buzzing about the results shown in the chart on the left. The survey found that many Super Listeners say they think the commercials “generally relevant” to their interests.

The Edison study was done in conjunction Podcast One [link], a division of the commercial radio network Westwood One. The survey consisted of 1,032 online interviews.

The headline of the survey is that podcast ads are an effective way to reach people. Commercials within podcasts rated higher (41% positive) than adds embedded in websites (37%), Live or recorded TV (23%) and AM/FM radio (23%). While the news is good for podcast ad venders, we believe the biggest “new news” found in the survey is about the Super listeners themselves. They are rare breed.

Edison classifies a Super Listeners as someone who consumes more than five hours of podcasts per week. This is a subset of a subset.

According to Edison, one in five (22%) of Americans (age 12+ or older) say they are weekly podcast listeners. Super Listeners are estimated to be 28% of the 22%.

Edison says that more than half (57%) of Super Listeners are “Super Duper Listeners” that consume more than eight hours per week of podcasts.

But, the Edison survey does not break down public radio versus the general population. We hypothesize that these two groups are different in the way they consume podcasts and perceive commercials in the shows.

Podtrac’s September Top 20 podcasts chart shows the split between the two groups. Podcasts with ties to public radio, occupy 14 of the Top 20 (70%). NPR podcasts are 50% of the Top 20. Meanwhile, commercial for-profit publishers have only six shows in the top ten. Plus, almost all of the podcasts associated with public radio have radio components.

We have said in the past that PODCASTS + RADIO = SUCCESS. Perhaps we should add that this is true for podcasts that have an affinity with public radio.

Podcasts produced by commercial publishers are much less likely to have a radio component. Only one show published by commercial companies has a radio component. The owners of The Ben Shapiro Show leveraged their popularity and media coverage into a daily show on right wing radio stations. They are the exception.

Even iHeartRadio doesn’t have a major podcast on radio despite the fact they own around a thousand of them.

We believe there are intrinsic differences between the people who chose to listen This American Life and those who choose to listen Pardon My Dust from Barstool Sports.

People who are public radio listeners are likely to have different attitudes about commercials within podcasts. After all, public radio is noncommercial.