Do Old People Listen To Podcasts? Yes. Yes, We Do.

Podcasting is often touted as a way to reach a younger, hipper demographic. But that ignores the millions of people 55+ who listen to podcasts today, with different habits and content preferences. We tend to think of podcasters as young and hip. And yes, that’s true. But according to Edison Research, 24 million Americans over 55 listen to podcasts, up from just 4 million a decade ago.

I don’t have access to the complete data set, but I’m confident enough (Dunning-Krueger much?) to make some inferences based on the… oh, let’s go with more mature podcast listening audience.

55+ podcast listeners have more discretionary time. 

55+ is a very wide swath, covering more senior employees with more flexible work schedules, plus many retired and semi-retired people. They aren’t forced to follow the listening patterns of those who work a 9-to-5. 

Lots of variance among 55+ podcast listeners.

My hunch is that if you plotted out the percentage of listeners for each age starting at 55, you’d likely see a standard Power Law develop. The “younger ages” on the left would have the biggest percentages, which gradually taper down as the age itself gets higher.

24 million will look small tomorrow.

When The Infinite Dial 2022 report comes out, people who were 54 in the prior report will now be counted in the 55+ bracket. 

55+ podcast listeners like age-specific content

If someone listens to Alan Alda’s podcast, Clear+Vivid, they also tend to like Katie Couric’s show. She’s 64. And the podcast by Rob Lowe who’s 57. And even WTF by Marc Marin, also 57. 

So yes, old people do listen to podcasts. And they’re going to keep listening to podcasts as we become they of whom we speak. 

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Boostagram Corner! 

Much love to Pat Cheung from PodInbox for the virtual coffees and Kevin Patton from Academic Podcasting for the nice review. Links to both are in the next section.

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Links:

• Advancing Podcasting community -  http://advancingpodcasting.xyz • Edison Research’s The Infinite Dial 2021 - https://www.edisonresearch.com/the-infinite-dial-2021-2 • Ed Asner (IMDB) - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000799 • The Mary Tyler Moore Show (Wikipedia) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mary_Tyler_Moore_Show • Westwood One 2021 Audioscape - https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/ear-brain-heart-1968391 • Power Law - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law • Other shows people who listen to Alan Alda’s podcast listen to - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/clear-vivid-with-alan-alda/id1400082430?id=1400082430#see-all/listeners-also-subscribed • Pat Cheung on Twitter - https://twitter.com/patcheungfrom  • PodInbox - https://www.podinbox.com • Use AZPOD when you register for She Podcast Live to save $100! - https://www.shepodcasts.com/live/ • Kevin Patton on Twitter - https://twitter.com/DrKevinPatton • Academic Podcasting - https://academicpodcasting.mn.co • Leave a review for Podcast Pontifications - https://ratethispodcast.com/podpont • More new podcast apps - https://podcastindex.org/apps • Support Evo on Buy Me A Coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/evoterra

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