Commercial Radio Australia and Triton Digital have released the findings of their second Australian Podcast Ranker report, revealing key insights for the year that was in the world of podcasts.
Publishers in the ranker delivered more than a whopping 420.8 million podcast live streams or downloads from January to the end of November.
The number of unique devices used to listen has climbed from around 1.8 million per week when the ranker launched in October 2019 to around 3.3 million currently.
Joan Warner, chief executive of industry body Commercial Radio Australia, said 2020 had been an “outstanding year for podcasting”, with the Australian Podcast Ranker now tracking 2,600 active podcasts across a wide range of genres and publishers.
Radio show podcasts were the most active category in 2020, with 101.3 million downloads.
“This is no surprise as it echoes the strong popularity of radio through the pandemic and reflects the established audiences these shows already have,” Warner said in a statement.
According to the report, true crime was the second most popular category (67.6 million downloads), followed by comedy (63.5 million) and news (51.9 million).
Thursday was the most popular day for listening, accounting for 17 per cent of downloads, and Sunday the least popular (10 per cent).
An average of 1.9 hours of podcast content was downloaded per device per week in November, up from 1.7 hours in January.
Triton Digital’s director of market development for APAC, Richard Palmer, said the Australian Podcast Ranker served a need in the market for a consistent, independently-verified report on podcast performance.
“The Australian Podcast Ranker is being embraced and adopted by advertisers, providing valuable insight into both the top podcasts as well as the size, scale, advertising opportunities and key publishers in the market,” Palmer said.
“We look forward to adding additional publishers and shows to the ranker in the coming months.”
The ranker reports monthly on the top 100 most popular international and Australian shows among participating publishers, and includes podcasts by radio, TV, print and independent producers.
An All-Australian Top 100 list was introduced in April to highlight local content and a Top 10 Publishers list was launched in June.
For further information on the key insights from the report, click here.
Featured image source: iStock/Nicola Katie
