Audio Streaming Hours By Device

It’s not just OTT and pay-TV viewing that have seen an increase in use since the beginning of the coronavirus. Audio streaming has also been on the rise as people spend more time in their homes.

There was some concern that the pandemic would result in a decrease in podcast listening, with fewer people commuting.

U.S. podcast downloads decreased 1% during the week ending March 15, 2020, 2% the week ending March 22, and 4% the week ending March 29 across all Podtrac measured podcasts.  

U.S. weekly podcast audiences decreased 2% the week ending March 15, 8% the week ending March 22, and 5% the week ending March 29.

While it may still be the case that people aren’t listening to podcasts as much as they were pre-pandemic, the Comscore data shows that it isn’t due to an overal decrease in audio streaming, which has, in fact, increased.

Indeed, per data from Comscore, US households have increased their average daily audio streaming by almost one hour over the past 6 months.

The data collected during the week of June 15, 2020 shows that audio streaming households have increased their listening by an average of 54 minutes per day compared to the week of December 10, 2019, for an increase of 32%.

This is, no doubt, welcome news to the 54% of brands that have increased their spend in digital audio since the pandemic.

Among the examined audio streaming services benefiting from the increased listening, Pandora Radio has seen the greatest increase in streaming hours. The service, which has seen usage drop in the past couple of years, experienced a 42% increase in listening hours between January and May of 2020.

By comparison, iHeartRadio experienced an increase of 11%.

Spotify’s listening hours increased by just 1%, but it remains well ahead of the other two services in terms of total time spent. Read the rest at Marketing Charts.