One of the big attractions for ad buyers to podcasting is the low rate of ad-skippage despite how easy it is for a listener to click right by a commercial. But the halo that the audio format has had for podcasters may not shine as bright in the video format. A new survey finds that among people who consume an episode on YouTube, the number of listeners that never skips an ad is lower while more say ads feel disruptive.
The survey, conducted by Veritonic, finds one in three podcast listeners say they always skip an ad on YouTube while consuming a podcast compared to 12% who say they never skip. That compares to a survey conducted earlier this year that showed 40% of podcast listeners said they listen to the ads all the time. Or a MARU/Matchbox survey released last year that said 29% never skip. While the other studies use different samples and methodologies, they offer some directional differences. In other words, the number of podcast consumers overall who say they always listens to a commercial is double to triple the rate of YouTube podcast consumers based on the Veritonic data.
A reason for the higher skip rates is likely due to how the ads are perceived. Nearly six in ten (58%) of those surveyed by Veritonic said they find ads on a podcast video on YouTube as disruptive, compared to 42% who say they don’t mind the commercial interruption. Another factor may also be the fact that watching a podcast is more active than listening, when a smartphone may not even be in someone’s hand – making the propensity to hit the skip button a lot stronger.
The silver lining to the data is that among those that see a YouTube ad during a podcast, seven in ten say they sometimes visit the website for the ad they saw. An additional eight percent say they always do.
Veritonic’s survey finds 78% of podcast listeners who are aware of YouTube – which likely makes up nearly all podcast listeners – say they use the free version of the video app to consume podcasts. Nearly half (47%) say they watch a podcast on YouTube at least once a week, while 36% say they do so daily.
The biggest reason for watching a podcast is a majority 54% said they like to see hosts and guests having a conversation, as opposed to just listening in. Three quarters said they are more engaged with the content when they view the video and nearly half say they pay more attention to the show. Slightly more than a third (35%) of viewers say they will even watch a podcast episode on YouTube after having already listened to it on an audio streaming service.
Podcast consumption is still largely an at-home medium and that holds true for the video format too. The survey shows 88% of YouTube viewing is done at home versus seven percent at work, and three percent while commuting on public transportation.
Most of the podcast consumption on YouTube is done using mobile devices (46%), followed by desktop/laptop computers (39%) and TVs (15%). Veritonic says it is a near-even split of consumption of podcasts using the YouTube app (55%) as opposed to accessing YouTube on an internet browser (45%).
Veritonic says its survey results are based on the result of a June online survey from more than 300 people in the U.S. who reported listening to podcasts on a daily or weekly basis and have watched at least one podcast on YouTube.
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