Nearly one out of five (19%) Internet users in the US say they have downloaded a podcast, according to the
Pew Internet & American Life Project. Pew's researchers said that was up from 12% in August 2006.
However, podcast downloading is still a niche activity. Even among those who said they downloaded podcasts, only 17% did so on a typical day.
Despite the growth, podcast users are still more likely to be young and male than the general population. Among male Internet users in the US, 22% said they had downloaded a podcast, compared with just 16% of online women. As for age, Internet users under 50 were significantly more likely than older users to download podcasts.
Podcast downloaders also tended to have more experience online than those who did not participate in this activity.
eMarketer predicts that the growth of the podcast audience in the US and the
migration of content toward portable devices will help the channel
mature and produce healthy increases in ad spending through
2012. The US podcast audience will grow from 18.5 million in 2007 to 65
million in 2012—an increase of over 250%.
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