Industry News

WWO: YouTube’s Growth as Podcast Destination

This week’s Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group blog reports that data from Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights’ Podcast Download Spring 2024 report shows YouTube has pulled away from primary competitors Spotify and Apple Podcasts to become the most-used podcast platform in the U.S. For the study,im MARU/Matchbox was hired to conduct an in-depth study of 603 weekly podcast consumers from April 19-24 of this year. Takeaways include: 1) YouTube is used most among Podcast Newcomers, Podcast Pioneers, and heavy podcast consumers; 2) YouTube podcast audience profile: Male and younger than the Apple Podcasts audience; 3) As the world’s entertainment search engine, YouTube is the dominant podcast discovery platform where audiences are more likely to find podcasts; and 4) Those who discover a podcast on YouTube say they stick with the platform for video, comments, community, entertainment, recommendations, and platform features. This growth for YouTube comes at the expense of Apple Podcasts. In July of 2019, Apple Podcasts was the most-used platform for 29% of weekly podcast consumers with 15% for YouTube. Five years later the figures are nearly reversed with 31% of weekly podcast consumers preferring YouTube and just 12% reporting Apple Podcasts as their most-used platform. See the full blog here.