Podcast Listening Becomes More Common In Australia Than In The U.S.

Edison Research has released the Australian edition of its Infinite Dial study. It finds that 43% of Australians age 12+ have listened to a podcast in the past month. That is one point higher than in the U.S. Australia also pulls ahead of the U.S. in weekly podcast listening as 33% of Australians have listened to a podcast in the last week compared to 31% who said that in the U.S. It is also higher than New Zealand (30%) and Canada (26%). And Edison says one in ten Australians aged 12 and older listen to podcasts daily.

Edison also reports that 87% of monthly podcast listeners have listened to a podcast at home while 64% have listened in-car. And weekly podcast listeners in Australia listen to an average of five podcast episodes per week.

“Australians are now the world’s biggest listeners of podcasts with 43% listening every month, surpassing the U.S. for the first time,” said Ford Ennals, Chief Executive of Commercial Radio & Audio (CRA), which sponsored the Edison report along with Triton Digital and SCA’s digital radio brand LiSTNR. Ennals noted the report also shows “exponential growth” in digital audio listening and the continued growth in radio listening of digital format.

Edison says weekly listening to online radio in Australia increased 80% year-to-year as 27% of Australians aged 12 and older reported they had listened to online radio in the last week. That is up from 15% in 2022. Edison says the rate of monthly online radio listening is higher in Australia than in the U.S.

Podcasts are also growing as an in-car entertainment option. Edison says 38% of Australians say they had listened to a podcast while in the car in the past month, up from 32% in 2022. In-vehicle listening to online radio is growing too as 20% said they had listened to online AM/FM stations in-car, up from 16% in 2022. Broadcast radio remains dominant however, at 84% monthly usage – up from 80% last year.

"The Infinite Dial findings mirror what we are seeing at LiSTNR, with record radio audience numbers and record podcast listeners,” said Dave Cameron, Chief Content Officer at SCA, which includes the LiSTNR digital audio network. “Audience behaviour is definitively shifting at pace towards a streaming and on-demand world and the digital audio advertising market is growing at similar levels. It demonstrates the strength, engagement and powerful mobility that audio offers listeners on all platforms."

Edison has released an Australian version of the Infinite Dial for the past seven years. This year’s report is based on telephone and online survey data collected from a sample of 1,576 people in Australia aged 12 and older.

Download Infinite Dial Australia HERE.