Podcasting Audience Up 18% Since Last Year

The audience for podcasts has grown 18% in the last year, according to an upcoming report from Edison Media Research. Awareness of podcasting has grown even more, jumping from 22% in 2006 to 37% in 2007.

At the Corporate Podcasting Summit, held March 19-20 in London, Edison Media Research VP Tom Webster gave a preview of their latest research on podcasting. Webster’s statistics suggest that podcasting, like other Internet media, is growing rapidly, drawing attention away from other media. In addition, podcasts are getting a very attractive group for advertisers - well-educated people with money that like to buy things online.

Here are some of the highlights of Webster’s presentation:

* The audience for podcasts is up by 18% from a year ago. In 2006, 11% of those surveyed listened to audio podcasts; in 2007, the number was 13%, about 18% growth. This figure looks like it may be the most controversial info in the report. At Marketwatch, for example, Frank Barnako is calling this anemic growth. While faster growth would be great for podcasters, a lot of industries would kill for 18% growth.
* Podcast awareness has exploded in the last year, growing from 22% to 37%.
* Video podcast use is up by 10%, going from 10% to 11%. The relatively small growth indicated by this stat doesn’t jive with obvious trends in Internet video. Internet video is exploding, and by many accounts, it has leapfrogged audio podcasting. It looks like their survey isn’t capturing much growth in interest in video blogs and video podcasts, maybe because of fuzziness about the definition of what a podcast is or isn’t. Is Ask a Ninja a video podcast? If you use Edison’s criteria, probably not.

Lots of more information with statistics in the rest of this article from Podcasting News

On the flip side, the CBC report (from the same findings) that the increase is slower than expected.

Either way it's an 18% increase and in my books that's better than a decrease right?