Podcast downloads had a strong start to May as Podtrac reports among the shows and publishers it measures total downloads increased four percent for the week of May 2 versus the last week of April. It says downloads were up 51% compared to the same period a year ago.
The Arts genre had the strongest week-to-week growth, with a 23% increase in downloads. Podtrac says True Crime (+11%), News (+5%), History (+ 3%), and Health & Fitness (+2%) also had week-to-week growth in their downloads. Those that slid back included Business, Science and Sports -- each had a one percent dip in downloads. The Society & Culture genre was flat week-to-week.
Podtrac reported earlier that ten of the top 20 publishers it measures had an increase in their unique media audience numbers during April. The top publisher remained iHeartRadio, with more than 441 million downloads and streams and a unique U.S. audience of 31 million. The rest of the top five was also the same: NPR, Wondery, New York Times, and NBC News.
Overall, Podtrac reports the average publisher had a two percent month-over-month decrease in their U.S. unique monthly audience last month. But compared to a year earlier, April 2022’s unique reach for the top 20 publishers was up 16% versus April 2021.
In terms of downloads, Podtrac says global downloads for the top 20 publishers overall were down five percent month-over-month during April. But they grew 31% compared to the download numbers from a year earlier.