The State of Podcast Listening for 2021: Podcasting Finds a Way

On Thursday, March 11, Edison Research and Triton Digital released the 2021 edition of The Infinite Dial, America’s longest-running study of consumer media habits (you can watch a replay of the webinar and download all of the slides here.) The podcasting community pays very close attention to these numbers every year, and personally I am extremely proud to have been a part of this work from the very beginning of podcasting. I know that these numbers end up in thousands of business plans, presentations, and media kits, and we literally spare no expense in time or treasure to ensure their accuracy and reliability.

The last year has been an odd one from a media consumption standpoint. It started normally, and then within the space of a few days, Tom Hanks and Rudy Gobert got sick and the world shut down, though the former did not cause the latter. In our ongoing tracking studies, the Podcast Consumer Tracker and Share of Ear®, we observed rapid declines in all forms of audio listening as many of us a) stopped commuting, and b) watched Tiger King. Podcast listening in particular went down in the early phases of the pandemic. Despite all of our extra time at home (the number one location for podcast listening) many of us were faced with opening up residential offices, daycares, and schools all on the same day, and whatever “me” time we were…