The number of monthly podcast listeners this past year continued to rise with 23% growth over the past three years and almost 10% over the past year, according to data from Triton Digital’s third annual U.S. Podcast Report. The 2024 report provides insights into listening habits, audience demographic data and the top podcasts, networks and debuts from the Triton U.S. Podcast Ranker.
In 2024, Triton said 44% of the U.S. population reported listening to a podcast within the past month. These listeners were reported to be younger, more educated, more affluent and more diverse than non-listeners, according to shared survey demographics.
“Podcasting has proven to be an engaging and powerful medium for storytelling, conversations, current events and entertainment,” said Triton in a press release.
[Related: “Triton Digital Reports Increased Podcast Listenership in 2023“]
YouTube continues to be the preferred platform for most listeners, per the report, capturing 33% of listeners in 2024 — its highest share yet.
The top podcast genres of 2024 were news (25% of downloads), true crime (19%) and comedy (13%). Notably, of true crime podcast listeners, Triton said 67% were female.
The top sales networks of 2024 were iHeart Audience Network at #1, SiriusXM Podcast Network at #2 and NPR at #3. “NPR News Now” remained the top podcast in 2024.
Daryl Battaglia, Triton’s SVP of measurement, products and strategy, said in the release: “As new audiences dive into podcasts and spend more time listening, fueling deeper engagement, genres like true crime, kids & family and history drive the highest back catalog consumption, creating untapped opportunities for programmatic advertising.”
Triton said the report incorporated data from a survey of 12,000 monthly podcast listeners in the U.S., done in collaboration with Signal Hill Insights.
Download the full 2024 U.S. Podcast Report here.
