Weekly podcast downloads and audiences are trending down since March 9th while overall growth in downloads and audiences is still positive year-to-date
Lots of people have questions about what’s happening in the podcast space as the COVID-19 crisis unfolds. Podtrac measures over a billion podcast downloads a month, so each week we’ll keep everyone up to date with weekly summaries of download and audience data across all the shows we measure.
Last week we provided data on the top podcast categories, and we had questions about the other categories, so this week we added charts for all 19 categories.
Year-To-Date U.S. Weekly Podcast Download and Audience Growth
Download growth since the first week of January is up 25% and audience growth is up 8% through the week ending March 29, 2020.
Week-Over-Week U.S. Podcast Download and Audience Growth
U.S. podcast downloads decreased 1% during the week ending March 15, 2020, 2% the week ending March 22, and 4% the week ending March 29 across all Podtrac measured podcasts.
U.S. weekly podcast audiences decreased 2% the week ending March 15, 8% the week ending March 22, and 5% the week ending March 29.
Year-To-Date U.S. Weekly Podcast Download Growth for Top Categories
For Podtrac measured shows, download growth year-to-date for top podcast categories is: +67% for News, +39% for Business, +29% for Comedy, +8% for Sports, and +6% for Society & Culture through the week ending March 29.
Week-Over-Week U.S. Podcast Download Growth for Top Categories
For Podtrac measured shows, downloads for the week ending March 29 compared to the week ending March 22 for top podcast categories is: +10% for Business, -4% for Comedy, -5% for Society & Culture, -6% for News, and -10% for Sports.
Year-To-Date U.S. Weekly Podcast Download Growth for All Categories
For Podtrac measured shows, download growth year-to-date by category through the week ending March 29 is: +67% for News, +39% for Business, +31% for Government, +29% for Comedy, +27% for Science, +24% for Kids & Family, +8% for Sports, +7% for History, +7% for Leisure, +6% for Society & Culture, +6% for Health & Fitness, +4% for Religion & Spirituality, +2% for Technology, +2% for TV and Film, +2% for Arts, -3% for Music, -9% for True Crime, -16% Education and -32% for Fiction.
Week-Over-Week U.S. Podcast Download Growth for All Categories
For Podtrac measured shows, category downloads week-over-week for the week ending March 29 compared to the week ending March 22 are: -6% for News, +10% for Business, -10% for Government, -4% for Comedy, +9% for Science, +9% for Kids & Family, -10% for Sports,-17% for History, -8% for Leisure, -5% for Society & Culture, -7% for Health & Fitness, +2% for Religion & Spirituality, -19% for Technology, -12% for TV and Film, 0% for Arts, -1% for Music, -1% for True Crime, -12% Education and +19% for Fiction.
Year-To-Date U.S. Weekly Podcast Audience Growth for Top Categories
Weekly category audience year-to-date for top podcast categories through the week ending March 29 is: +29% for News, +11% for Business, +12% for Comedy, -6% for Sports, +2% for Society & Culture.