YouGov reveal Australia's podcast listening statistics

On the occasion of International Podcast Day, data from YouGov Profiles shows that a majority of Australians now listen to podcasts, with one in five claiming they listen to a podcast at least once a week (20%), followed by one in six (16%) who do so at least once a day. The rest listen to a podcast at least once a month (9%) or lesser than that (13%). Two in five Australians (40%) do not listen to podcasts.

Podcast listening is concentrated among younger Australians with 27% of those aged 25-34 listening at least once a day and 33% listening at least once a week. This group is followed by those between 35-44, 26% of whom listen to podcasts once a day or more, and 28% once a week or more. Listenership drops off among older age groups with three in five (61%) of 55+ adults saying they do not listen to podcasts at all.

Music (29%) is the top podcast genre amongst those who listen to podcasts followed by news & politics (17%) and comedy (14%) in second and third place. Science and true crime genre (10% each) bring up the rear of the list of top ten podcast genres amongst Australians.

While a third of male podcast listeners (33%) listen to music podcasts, this proportion falls to a quarter among female listeners (25%). Similarly, men are also significantly likelier than women to engage with podcasts about news and politics (21% vs. 12%), comedy (17% vs. 12%) and TV & movies (15% vs 9%). The largest disparity is around sports podcasts, where a higher number of men consume this genre of podcasts compared to women (17% vs 4%).

On the other hand, women are more likely than men to regularly listen to true crime podcasts (13% vs 8%), as well as health and living podcasts (14% vs 11%).

Data from YouGov Profiles shows that among the various podcast service providers, around a quarter of Australians who listen to podcasts use Spotify to do so (24%). That is followed by YouTube (21%) and Apple podcasts (13%).

Two in five of 18-34 and 25-34-year-old respondents use Spotify podcasts compared to one in ten of respondents aged 55 and above (11%).

Apple Podcasts finds a larger audience among 25-44-year-olds as compared to the others. Similarly, ABC Listen is more commonly used by those between 45-54 than the rest.

Among the genders, YouTube and Spotify are equally popular among men, but among women Spotify is more popular (at 24%) than YouTube (18%).

Methodology: YouGov Profiles is based on continuously collected data and rolling surveys, rather than from a single limited questionnaire. Profiles data for Australia is nationally representative of the online population and weighted by age, gender, education, region, and race. The dataset is from September 2023.