Last week I wrote about Edison Research’s newly published Top 25 UK podcasts in Q2 2023. Go back and read that if you haven’t already.
Melissa Kiesche is Senior Vice President at Edison Research and is responsible for the data, and James Cridland interviewed her on this week’s Podnews Weekly Review and it’s well worth going away and having a listen to the interview.
Kiesche shared a few additional stats that hadn’t previously been published. In the UK 33% of podcast listeners say that they’re using Spotify most often to listen to podcasts. That’s followed by YouTube at 19%, BBC Sounds at 15% and Apple at 13%. The order is seemingly the same as the US, with the exception of BBC Sounds which unsurprisingly isn’t on the US list of platforms. (The placement of Apple also confirms my thoughts about the early look at the data Edison presented back in May. I would again note that this doesn’t mean that the order is the same for overall consumption. This is reach figure.)
On the Podnews episode we also got the Top 5 shows among women, which are different to the overall Top 5. Kiesche noted that Joe Rogan dropped out the Top 15 when you consider only women. Initially I wasn’t too surprised by this, but Kiesche noted that Rogan is still #2 in the US among women, so in the UK at least, Rogan seriously skews male.
The Top 5 amongst Women is:
- Diary of a CEO
- Sh**ged, Married, Annoyed
- Off Menu
- Newlyweds
- Happy Place
In terms of how the survey was conducted, there were a few more details given in the interview:
- They interview about 20-30 people a day (giving over 2,000 respondents across the quarter)
- They ask interviewees which podcasts they’ve listened to in the last week. They don’t give respondents a big long list, but what research interviewers call an “open” question where any response can be captured (This obviously has to be cleaned up afterwards where people have titles wrong etc)
- Respondents are asked to consider apps, websites, social media and anywhere else they might listen to podcasts
- Respondents are given instructions to find their listening histories in various apps so they can be complete
Kiesche noted that there is more diversity in podcast subjects in the UK compared with the US. For example, in the US charts there are 6 true-crime shows in the Top 25, whereas there aren’t actually any in the UK Top 25. I hadn’t spotted that and considering the popularity of the format, this may be a surprising finding. The one thing I would note is that the US seems to have more really big ongoing “always on” true crime podcasts that tackle a new case each week. While those podcasts definitely exist in the UK, I would hypothesise that true crime in the UK has tended to be more about limited series. For example, the six episodes of Sweet Bobby.
Kiesche also talked about what else subscribers to the data can get hold of, including:
- Demographics
- Use of media and technology
- Podcast listening habits
- Purchase intentions
Obviously this is very helpful for sales purposes. And over time, quarter on quarter comparisons can be made. In the US, agencies are also subscribing to this data so that they can use the demographic information to target appropriate titles that match the needs of their clients.
They also allow subscribers to pay to ask their own questions.
Quarter 3 data collection is just about finished, and they’ve got coding to do, so they’re looking to release the next data in early November and we might also see top publishers and top genres at that time.
Something to look forward to!
One further observation about the initial list of 25 that I failed to mention last week is that the UK Top 25 does show that new podcast titles can break into the list. There is sometimes despair that it’s too late to launch a popular podcast now, and that ship has sailed. But The Rest Is Politics is only 18 months old, The News Agents is just over a year old, and The Therapy Crouch only began in January this year.
So there is hope for your new podcast to get into the Top 25 in the future!