The Spoken Word Audio Report 2023 released by NPR and Edison Research this week showed record highs in both listening time and audience size for spoken word audio in the US, a trend that we in Australia have, if anything, exceeded.
The survey recorded the listening habits of over 4000 Americans aged 13+. Comparisons between 2023 and 2014 showed nearly half listen to some type of spoken word audio daily, up 2% from last year, 9% from nine years ago and an increase of around 30 million listeners.
31% of those surveyed spent time daily listening to spoken word audio, up from 20% nine years ago and a sign that music is not driving our audio listening habits as much.
The greatest amount of time spent listening to spoken word audio was at home (60%) with the car less than half that amount (24%). The time spent listening to spoken word audio at home has grown to 41 minutes a day in 2023 from 27 minutes in 2014. Increases in at-home spoken word audio listening are seen across every hour in the listening day.
Contrary to perhaps what you would expect from the above time spent listening to spoken word audio in the car actually declined from 36% in 2014 to 24% in 2023. It dropped 10% since 2019. AM/FM radio was the most common way to listen in the car.
For the first time, mobile devices were the primary way people listened to spoken word audio (39% daily ahead of 35% on AM/FM radio receiver).
Finally, in nine years podcast and audio book consumption have cut AM/FM radio spoken word audio listening in half. With the rise in radio catch up podcasts this is possibly less significant than it sounds if you allow that some AM/FM shows would appear in both columns.
Megan Lazovick, VP at Edison Research, said:
“Podcasting now accounts for over one-third of the time spent with spoken word audio. The cultural shift to digital certainly benefits this space, or perhaps, it’s vice versa – the growing enthusiasm for podcasting is shifting the culture digital. Either way – podcast listening continues to grow.”
Edison Research’s Share of Ear study is conducted via a quarterly survey of Americans who are asked to keep a detailed one-day diary of their audio usage.