(UK) has been increasing year on year, reaching an estimated 21.2 million listeners in 2022. This
is mirrored in the results from a survey from 2021 in which 71 percent of respondents said that they were familiar with podcasts while 41 percent had listened to a podcast within the month prior to the survey. These numbers show the increased awareness people have of podcasts. With the UK reaching podcast consumption levels similar to other big markets such as the United States, podcast publishers become more important as they benefit from an growing number of streams and downloads. As of June 2023, the
worldwide were iHeartRadio, NPR, as well as the New York Times and Wondery.
Audience engagement
What do listeners look for when it comes to choosing a show? According to a survey from 2022, a majority of people in the United Kingdom
listened to podcasts for entertainment, namely 57 percent. Another reason, which 48 percent of respondents listed, was that they wanted to learn something new or to improve their understanding of something they already know about. When it came to keeping listeners tuned in, time and entertainment seem to play a big role. A share of 30 percent said they
stopped listening to podcasts because they could not find any that were interesting
Considering the genres that people in the UK like to listen to, a survey from 2022 showed that across nearly all generations, comedy was the
most popular podcast genre.
Among male podcast consumers football was another genre in high demand, while women preferred to listen to
true crime podcasts.
Spotify and podcast advertising
Spotify is by far the top platform used to consume music as well as podcasts. Not only that, in a bid to increase its foothold in the podcasting arena, Spotify has started to produce more and more exclusive podcasts while other streaming services have started to purchase smaller podcast platforms in order to compete with Spotify. With podcasts having an increasingly large audience and a variety of topics covered, advertisers are starting to discover the medium as an attractive platform. Therefor it comes to no surprise that the
ad spending per internet user is estimated to amount to 5.51 GBP in 2027. Notably, the average ad spending per internet user (ARPU) of the segment digital audio advertising within podcasts was continuously increasing over the past years.
In 2022 alone,
podcast advertising expenditure in the UK amounted to 80 million pounds and with the increased popularity of podcasts, the format presents promising potential for advertisers in the future.
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Due to varying update cycles, statistics can display more up-to-date
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