Australians still have a voracious appetite for podcasts, according the newly-released December 2023 Australian Podcast Ranker.
It reveals that we downloaded 1.03 billion podcasts in 2023, up 26% for the year.
Released today by Commercial Radio & Audio (CRA) and Triton Digital, the Ranker is a monthly snapshot of the top 200 podcasts listened to by Australians, the top 200 Australian podcasts, the biggest publishers and the most successful podcast sales representatives.
According to the Ranker, the five most popular podcasts in Australia for 2023 were: Hamish & Andy, Casefile True Crime, Mamamia Out Loud, Shameless and The Kyle & Jackie O Show
“The Australian Podcast Ranker has confirmed that podcast listening is a passion shared by many Australians. There were over 1 billion podcast downloads in 2023. This equates to over 2.8 million downloads every day,” says Ford Ennals, CEO of CRA.
December, a quieter month for podcast listening as radio stars go on leave and fewer podcast episodes are produced by radio networks, saw monthly downloads increase 29% from December 2022.
The top five podcasts for December 2023 were, in order: Casefile True Crime, Mamamia Out Loud, Hamish & Andy, Shameless and The Imperfects.
“It has been an incredible year for podcasts and the Australian Podcast Ranker, with eight new publishers coming on board in 2023, including the ABC in November,” says Mr Ennals.
“Four out of the top five podcasts of 2023 and 15 out of the top 20 most popular podcasts in December were produced locally.”
The analysis revealed the average Australian listener spent 2.3 hours a week listening to podcasts in 2023 and downloaded 3.95 podcasts a week.
The top five publishers were ARN/iHeart, LiSTNR (SCA), the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, SiriusXM Podcast Network and Audioboom.
The top five most popular podcast genres in 2023 were Society and Culture, Comedy, True Crime, News and Sports.
Thursday is the biggest day of the week to download or stream podcasts, and 8 am is the peak listening hour. Ninety-four per cent of all listening happens on a mobile device.