Podcasters looking to launch a daily show or any producer trying to figure out when to drop a new episode take note – newly released Edison Research data shows that half of all podcast listening occurs before 2pm. Edison dug into its Share of Ear data and also found that the biggest share is not during morning or afternoon commuting times.
Edison says the most time spent listening occurs during the midday hours -- defined as between 10am and 2pm – when 26% of time spent listening to podcast occurs. That is slightly ahead of the morning commuting hours. Edison says 25% of time spent listening to podcasts happens before 10am. That could be a factor in why two of the top five podcasts as measured by Podtrac – the New York Times-produced The Daily and NPR’s morning news podcast Up First – drop in the morning.
Compared to the start of the day, the afternoon commuting hours trails when it comes to podcast listening. The PM commute daypart accounts for 21% of podcast listening time.
“Some listening happens in all hours,” Edison notes in a blog post. It points out that the overnight hours between 2am and 6am is when three percent of all podcast listening occurs.
Edison says the Share of Ear data covers all seven days of the week equally represented, so both weekend days and weekdays contribute to its findings.