Podcasting is often touted as a way to reach a younger hipper
Evo Terra:demographic, but that ignores the millions of people 55 and older,
Evo Terra:who listened to podcasts today with different habits and content preference.
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Evo Terra:Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.
Evo Terra:I've been thinking about a slide from Edison Research's The Infinite Dial 2021
Evo Terra:report that showed strong growth in the 55 and older listening crowd to podcasts.
Evo Terra:That's now up to an estimated twenty-four million Americans, which is up big time
Evo Terra:from like four million a decade ago.
Evo Terra:Twenty more million people 55 and older are listening to podcasts
Evo Terra:today than were a decade ago.
Evo Terra:A lot can happen in a decade.
Evo Terra:Related to that, you know, a few days ago we lost Ed Asner at ninety-one.
Evo Terra:Ed, if you're unfamiliar, was most known for his role on the Mary Tyler
Evo Terra:Moore Show, which ran from 1970 to 1976.
Evo Terra:If you remember the show at all or were subjected to it perhaps by your parents
Evo Terra:or grandparents who liked to watch reruns, you remember that Ed's character, Lou,
Evo Terra:was the grumpy old man on the show.
Evo Terra:Old man Ed Asner was in his forties the entire time that show aired.
Evo Terra:I'm older than Ed Asner was during the taping of the Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Evo Terra:So let's get back to podcasting cause all of this ties in together.
Evo Terra:We tend to think of podcasting as something that is young and
Evo Terra:hip and attracts the youngsters and the hipsters, I guess.
Evo Terra:And yes, in truth, i t actually is.
Evo Terra:Just today there was a report out by Westwood One, showing the median age of
Evo Terra:podcast listeners is just thirty-four.
Evo Terra:But remember that slide I mentioned from the Edison Research.
Evo Terra:There are a lot of not thirty-four-year-olds listening
Evo Terra:to podcasts, and their number is growing every single year.
Evo Terra:Now, I'm going to make a lot of inferences here on just a couple
Evo Terra:of the graphs in that report.
Evo Terra:With those inferences come four bits of insight that I think warrant the
Evo Terra:attention of podcasters like you and me.
Evo Terra:The 55 and older podcast listening crowd have more discretionary time.
Evo Terra:If we look at this same report, Edison Research's The Infinite Dial
Evo Terra:21 report, the middle group, the thirty-five to fifty-four-year-olds,
Evo Terra:they actually went down as a percentage.
Evo Terra:The percentage of listeners of that age group that listened to podcast
Evo Terra:on a monthly basis, that actually went down from '20 to '21, likely
Evo Terra:because of the pandemic problems.
Evo Terra:A lot of key listening time for that age group like commuting back
Evo Terra:and forth to work and going to the gym, well, a lot of that went away.
Evo Terra:But for the 55 and older crowd, same timeframe, they actually grew by
Evo Terra:four basis points year over year.
Evo Terra:And yes, I do understand that many people in the 55 and older crowd do have
Evo Terra:jobs and do commute and go to the gym.
Evo Terra:But many of them actually are further along in their careers and have a lot more
Evo Terra:flexibility than some of the youngers.
Evo Terra:Also, that 55 and older bucket is big.
Evo Terra:It covers a lot of retired and semi-retired people who don't do the
Evo Terra:normal things, like listen in the morning on the commute and listen
Evo Terra:on the way home on the commute.
Evo Terra:They don't follow normal listening practices because behaviors change
Evo Terra:when you retire or semi-retire.
Evo Terra:So if this group, this 55 and older group, which is growing, if that's bucking
Evo Terra:that trend, what other best practices or assumed behaviors of podcasting are
Evo Terra:they bucking and you're not aware of?
Evo Terra:Second interesting thing I note is that 55 and older podcast
Evo Terra:listeners is by far not a monolith.
Evo Terra:You realize that between 55 and, let's just say, a hundred
Evo Terra:that's forty-five different ages.
Evo Terra:And the difference between a 55-year-old and a seventy-year-old is vast.
Evo Terra:That's only fifteen years in between there, but still a big difference
Evo Terra:from someone who is 55 to someone who is seventy, generally speaking.
Evo Terra:Now, I don't have the data to support this, I'm sure Edison does, but it
Evo Terra:stands to reason that the percentage of listeners across those forty-five years,
Evo Terra:between 55 and 100, it stands to reason if you plotted out the number of people
Evo Terra:listening, the percentage of listening in each year, it would be a big power curve.
Evo Terra:Right?
Evo Terra:55 would probably be the biggest, or 55 to fifty-seven, and then it would
Evo Terra:slowly taper off, as the age number gets higher, the percentage likely gets lower.
Evo Terra:But as time progresses, that fat head you see at 55, fifty-six will continue to get
Evo Terra:a little wider and a little wider and a little wider as people continue to age in.
Evo Terra:That brings me to my third insight here.
Evo Terra:Twenty-four million today.
Evo Terra:What is that, 240 million tomorrow?
Evo Terra:Okay, maybe not tomorrow, but pretty soon.
Evo Terra:You've got to remember, the thirty-five to fifty-four year age bracket, the
Evo Terra:fifty-fours age into 55+ every year.
Evo Terra:And those are people who are listening a lot right now.
Evo Terra:You don't magically stop listening to podcasts when you turn 55.
Evo Terra:They're going to keep listening.
Evo Terra:I've long said that podcasting fails the "grandma test."
Evo Terra:Where the blame squarely sits at the feet shared by the distributed
Evo Terra:nature of podcasting, as well as podcast listening app developers.
Evo Terra:I'm not sure that either of those things is going to change anytime soon,
Evo Terra:cause they haven't in seventeen years.
Evo Terra:But my wife, who is also a grandma, has no trouble using the podcast listening app.
Evo Terra:Not the podcast listening app that came on her phone, the one she purposely
Evo Terra:installed because she knows it provides a better experience for her.
Evo Terra:The old people in technology problem, if you will, is being solved.
Evo Terra:Not because technology is getting better, although I guess you could
Evo Terra:argue it is, but because tech-savvy people are aging into those ranges.
Evo Terra:Also, us 55 and older crowd tend to listen to age-specific content.
Evo Terra:For fun, go look at Alan Alda's podcast, Clear+Vivid.
Evo Terra:I'm not sure why we stopped using the ampersand, but Clear+Vivid is
Evo Terra:the name of Alan Alda's podcast.
Evo Terra:Look at it on Apple Podcasts.
Evo Terra:Just use the website.
Evo Terra:Don't have to worry about installing the program.
Evo Terra:I'll put a link to it in the episode details.
Evo Terra:Scroll down to the "listeners also subscribed to" section,
Evo Terra:and what do you see?
Evo Terra:A predominance of shows that are hosted by people in that 55+ age range.
Evo Terra:Now, Alan Alda's 85.
Evo Terra:Katie Couric's show is in there.
Evo Terra:She's 64.
Evo Terra:Rob Lowe's podcast was there as well.
Evo Terra:He's 57.
Evo Terra:You'll also see WTF by Mark Maron.
Evo Terra:He's in
Evo Terra:there too.
Evo Terra:Well, guess what?
Evo Terra:Mark is same majors Rob 57.
Evo Terra:It's not all old people stuff.
Evo Terra:I mean, sure.
Evo Terra:Some of it is hosted by old people, but it's very mainstream.
Evo Terra:And also there's a lot of very niche content in there as well.
Evo Terra:So yeah, old people do listen to podcasts and we're going to keep
Evo Terra:lists that, excuse me, they are going to keep listening to podcasts
Evo Terra:as we become those of who we speak.
Evo Terra:Let's do some quick Boostagram Cornering, shall we?
Evo Terra:Now it's time for the boost-the boost-the boost- Boostagram Corner.
Evo Terra:Boostagram Corner.
Evo Terra:I don't know a thing about crypto.
Evo Terra:Patchy from the pod inbox.
Evo Terra:He bought me 15 virtual coffees and says, see you for a real
Evo Terra:coffee at sheep podcast.
Evo Terra:Live indeed, you will pat.
Evo Terra:Thanks.
Evo Terra:Looking forward to that, by the way she podcast is in October and Scott.
Evo Terra:If you use the code, a Z P O D.
Evo Terra:When you register, you'll save like a hundred bucks on your ticket.
Evo Terra:Yeah.
Evo Terra:Go.
Evo Terra:I'm going to be there.
Evo Terra:Also Kevin Patton of academic podcasting.
Evo Terra:He left me a nice review for Podcast Pontifications on pod
Evo Terra:chaser and said, I love the brief, but provocative audio essays that
Evo Terra:get me thinking outside the box.
Evo Terra:The other podcasting pundants often seem to put us in.
Evo Terra:Ooh.
Evo Terra:Even when I disagree with Evo suggestions, what I learned from.
Evo Terra:Any podcaster who consider themselves creative needs to listen regularly.
Evo Terra:Thank you very much, Kevin, for that.
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Evo Terra:leaving a review somewhere like Kevin did.
Evo Terra:Or, finally, at BuyMeACoffee.com/evoterra, much like Pat.
Evo Terra:That's it.
Evo Terra:I shall be back tomorrow with yet another Podcast Pontifications.
Evo Terra:Cheers!
Evo Terra:Podcast Pontifications is written and narrated by Evo Terra.
Evo Terra:He's on a mission to make podcasting better.
Evo Terra:Links to everything mentioned in today's episode are in the notes
Evo Terra:section of your podcast listening app.
Evo Terra:A written-to-be-read article based on today's episode is available at
Evo Terra:podcastpontifications.com where you'll also find a video version and a corrected
Evo Terra:transcript, both created by Allie Press.
Evo Terra:Podcast Pontifications is a production of Simpler Media.