Diversity In Listening To Audio Is Growing

Deadline reported on Thursday on a Nielsen blog post called “Podcasts are Resonating with Diverse Audiences” that pulled together data from many of their recent reports that show that audio listenership is growing in Black, Hispanic, and Asian-American audiences which in turn will continue to grow the podcast revenue market.

Their blog was a concise analysis of long term trends that they reported on recently, mainly that diversity matters and there is an audience to support it.

Their Podcast Buying Power report shows that on average people from the following consumer groups listen to podcasts between 9 to 12 times per month: Asian American, Black, Hispanic, people with disabilities and LGBTQ+ groups.

Among the other highlights of Nielsen’s blog were that:

1. Black listeners are averaging a 73% brand recall for podcast ads
2. Hispanic podcast listening in the 25-39 demographic has doubled over the last three years.
3. Asian American podcast listeners have grown 500% over the last decade

Their blog overall highlights the strength of the rapidly growing podcast audience and references the IAB’s prediction that podcast ad revenue will reach 2 billion by 2023.

They use their data to make the point that audience engagement comes from not only being represented in media but by having content that connects to them from “trusted voices with similar backgrounds or that have similar interests.”

Nielsen’s reporting dovetails with similar reports from Edison Research with their Black and Latino podcast reports. Their Latino Podcast Listener Report 2021 found that 36% of U.S. Latinos over the age of 18 have listened to a podcast in the last month, which was a 44% increase over the numbers from their 2020 Latino report. Meanwhile, their Black Podcast Listener Report 2021 found that 36% of Black American adults are now monthly podcast listeners.

The real winners of reports like these is the fact that even more content for diverse audiences will now be created along with more engaged listeners among those groups which is good news for the growing communities within those groups.