Survey: Why Publishers Should Target Younger Demos in Paid Podcast Push
Publishers like The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times looking to generate subscription revenue from their podcasts to supplement the ad revenue already coming from that audio content should focus on younger demographics in the year ahead.
That’s according to exclusive data provided to Variety Intelligence Platform by global pollster YouGov, which conducted a survey between Jan. 18 and Feb. 3 among 1,554 U.S. adults aged 18+. In that survey, 749 respondents aged 18+ indicated that they listen to podcasts at some level of regularity. The rest of this article only reflects the attitudes of consumers within this 749-sized sample base (the self-reported podcast listeners) and will refer to them simply as “respondents.”
YouGov’s survey found that respondents aged 18-34 indicated they’d be more likely than their older counterparts to soon pay for podcasts.
For example, while nearly 40% of both respondents aged 18-24 and 25-34 said that they’d be “somewhat likely” or “very likely” to pay or donate to access or listen to a podcast within 12 months, the percentage of respondents indicating the same was noticeably lower in the older age groups of 35-44 (26%), 45-54 (16%) and 55+ (12%).
The 18-24 and 25-34 respondents were separated less from the 35-44 respondents when gauged on past purchases of podcast content.
But it still makes sense for subscription revenue-seeking podcast producers to prioritize 18-34s in the months ahead because the first chart in this article suggests that they will be a faster-growing cohort of subscription podcast consumers in the near future.
Moreover, some publishers may want to increase their traffic among 18-34s (which are valuable to digital advertisers looking to reach cord-cutters) anyways. And some listeners could start to visit a publisher’s website more frequently after subscribing to their paid podcasts.
Subscription revenue has become a bigger focus in the podcast industry within the past 12 months.
That's because of the tech platforms that have recently encouraged podcast subscription revenue: Spotify in August enabled all U.S. podcast creators to charge subscriptions to the podcasts on its platform. Prior to that in June, Apple Podcasts launched in-app subscriptions after pushing back the rollout from May.
Sure, it’s not likely that revenue generated via subscriptions will trump revenue generated via ads for many podcast producers in the year ahead. VIP+ has previously analyzed exclusive data from YouGov in the past, hinting that paying for podcasts is far from common practice among podcast listeners, let alone U.S. consumers in general.
However, with the exposure to paid podcasts growing and the method of paying for podcasts for many becoming more seamless thanks to players like Apple Podcasts, certain consumers now may be in the market for podcast subscriptions for the first time.
And who knows, perhaps there is eventually even a “Serial”-like moment where one paywalled podcast series catches fire and causes many consumers to purchase podcast subscriptions for the first time.
Maybe that’s unlikely in the near future, but it doesn’t seem totally impossible in general.
Publishers looking to ramp up podcast production in the months ahead in anticipation of younger paying listeners may be well served in focusing on true crime and comedy genres, YouGov data suggests.
True Crime was the genre in which 18-24-year-old respondents most desired new interesting podcasts, while comedy was that genre for 25-34-year-old respondents.
It's true that true crime and comedy only slightly beat out the no. 2 desired podcast genres among 18-24 and 25-34-year-old respondents. But keep in mind that those two genres were also among the top-five-ranking genres in which all respondents aged 18+ signaled they’d like to see more podcasts. So those types of podcasts could also be a smart way to help companies more broadly grow out their listener bases.