Podcast Alley puts numbers next to their categories of podcasts.  43,000 total podcasts.  Wow.  There are other podcast directories and better sources of data, but nevertheless I felt like making a chart.

July 2008 Podcast Category Numbers from Podcast Alley

How many have released content in the past 3 months?

What do the numbers say about the podcast listeners? What’s demographic?

I was a little surprised by what I found.  Music on top; kids and environment on bottom.  The largest group was uncategorized, with 12,000 podcasts.

Only counting categorized podcasts, a quarter are music podcasts.  Then there’s 13% tech, 10% comedy, 8% religion.  Business, education and society each have 6%.  Art, sports, video, health each have 4%.  And at the very bottom are tv, news, travel, food, games and hobbies, environment, kids, science and government.

Did some Googling.  Found better stats.

The Podcast Consumer Revealed 2008 (lots of interesting stuff; 20% of people have downloaded and consumed audio or video podcasts; 25% of them have a MySpace account; they block pop ups and SPAM and tend toward non-traditional media consumption)

Online Radio Listening At-Work Grows (radio source: internet 20%, air waves 80%; college grads more internet aware)

BuzzMachine – “Podcasts get ratings” (6% of US adults are podcast listeners)

Paul Colligan’s Profitable Podcasting (list of links, emphasis on surge of video podcasts)

PodBridge cites the following:

  • US Podcast advertising spending increased 106% in 2007 and is projected to rise to $435m in 2012 (eMarketer)
  • US Podcast audience reached 18.5m in 2007, and will increase by 251% to 65m in 2012 (eMarketer)
  • iPod/Portable MP3 player ownership continues dramatic growth. Nearly four in ten (37%) own an iPod or other brand of portable MP3 player (Edison Research Apr 2008
  • 45.1% of active Internet users have downloaded a podcast (Universal McCann)
  • In the past 9 months, downloading podcasts more than doubled going from 14% to 30% among active Internet users (Universal McCann)

Podcasting News – New Media Is Now Mainstream Media; Podcasting Growth Is “Massive” (China wins again; of all subscribers, 18% listen and download everyday)

Is Podcasting Dead? (exaggerated headline of course, but good points, such as – don’t do it for the money)