Forrester Research did a consumer poll to see what is actually happening in the world of Podcasts and Podcasting. The numbers are not all that surprising to me.
Although there is growth in the popularity and familiarity of Podcasting, it seems that only a small percentage of Americans regularly listen to a podcast.
Here are some stats from the Forrester Research study:
– The survey was based on 5000 Internet users.
– 25% of online consumers showed an interest in Podcasts.
– People liked the notion of listening to programming at their leisure.
– 1% of households regularly listen to a Podcast.
– 2% of households had sampled a Podcast.
What else do we know about Podcasts?
The demographic is mostly young, male and tech savvy (although the same was said about the Internet, mobile phones and more). It’s clearly still in the early adopter phase.
Search for Podcasts is not great. So, beyond iTunes and Yahoo!’s podcast search engine, it’s a challenge to find Podcasts.
In terms of why this matters for marketers? The only way to really gauge traffic is by how many times the Podcast was downloaded – so we’re not one hundred percent clear on listening audience.
Beyond that, Forrester did deliver some good news. They are predicting that twelve million households will latch on to Podcasting by 2010. By this estimate, they’re saying that we are four years away from Podcasting’s tipping point.
My guess is that it will happen a lot sooner or the medium will completely become irrelevant by then in comparison to Slivercasting and Vlogs.