NPR & EDISON RESEARCH HOST A TERRIFIC WEBINAR THAT PROVIDES A CLOSE LOOK AT “SPOKEN WORD” AUDIO

We will get to the research findings in a minute. But first, we want to praise this webinar that happened on Tuesday (11/12).

NPR and Edison Research published the Spoken Word Audio Report and hosted the webinar. Spoken Word audio includes news, talk and sports on both over-the-air radio and streaming audio. The definition of Spoken Word also includes podcasts and audiobooks.

Meg Goldthwaite

This excellent webinar is a template for how to do presentations of this type. 

The presenters and hosts were Meg Goldthwaite, Chief Marketing Officer at NPR and Megan Lazovick, VP of Edison Research. 

The webinar was mainly live with some short prerecorded segments. 

The platform was GoToWebinar.

Here are some of the things we liked the most about this show:

• The pacing was just right. It moved quickly but it never felt rushed.

• It didn’t waste our time. A lot of information provided was presented In 45-minutes.

Megan Lazovick

• The presentation was scripted. The presenters had obviously rehearsed the show before it happened.

• There were no technical glitches.

• The content was tightly focused and the takeaways were clear.

• We asked a question in the chat box and we quickly got an answer.

• Meg and Megan sounded personable and there was never too much insider tech talk.

We have only one negative comment: The two presenters not only have similar names, they have similar vocal styles. We could never tell who was speaking.

TAKEAWAYS & TIDBITS

The researchers define Spoken Word as the audio heard from radio, podcasts and audiobooks. These are what we believe are the key findings:

• People are spending more time listening to Spoken Word Audio and less time listening 
to music.

• Listening to Spoken Word audio is growing in all demographic categories. The fastest growing segment of the population that listens to Spoken Word audio is younger people. 

 

• Mobile devices are the fastest growing way that people use to hear Spoken Word audio.

• Listeners say that Spoken Word audio provides them with deep connections and increased involvement in the content.

You can download the complete report here. For more information contact Meg Goldthwaite at mgoldthwaite@npr.org

Charts from the Spoken Word Audio Report speak for themselves.