A springtime spouting of new series and new seasons of existing shows is finding an audience. Podcast downloads continue to show growth, not only compared to last year’s unusual April but also week-to-week. Podtrac reports among the publishers it measures downloads grew five percent last week (April 12-18) versus the prior week. And downloads were up 11% over the corresponding period last year.
Listeners were in the mood to laugh with the Comedy category having the best week-to-week growth, with downloads up 16%. Also gaining were History (+8%), Science (+8%), Society & Culture (+5%), Business (+5%), True Crime (+3%), News (+2%), Arts (+2%), and Education (+2%). None of the big categories were down although Sports was flat compared to a week earlier.
Podtrac earlier reported that iHeartMedia topped its ranker for March with a unique U.S. audience of more than 30 million listeners, a new record, and downloads and streams that topped 257 million.
Podtrac also said all but two of the top 20 publishers it measures had an increase in their monthly audience in March compared to February. Among the top 20, downloads were up an average of 11% between February and March although downloads were flat last month compared to a year ago.