Radio still listened to by 86% of Australians and 37% are reached by podcasting each month according to a recent study conducted by Edison Research on behalf of Commercial Radio Australia (CRA), Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) and Triton Digital. The findings are published in The Infinite Dial 2021 Australia which brings together the results of a representative sample of 1000 Australians aged 12 and older conducted in the first quarter of 2021.
Key findings from the Infinite Dial 2021 Australia report
- AM/FM/DAB+ live content (or catch-up podcasts) has a tremendous weekly reach of Australians age 12+ (80%), in addition to the monthly reach of 86%. This reach extends to in-car listening as well, where 84% of those who have driven or ridden in a car in the last month have listened to AM/FM/DAB+ radio.
- Podcasting awareness is high, with 91% of Australians reporting being aware of podcasting, significantly higher than the 78% of those in the US who are familiar with podcasting. Monthly listening to podcasts by Australians is almost equal to that of those in the US – 37% of Australians are monthly podcast listeners compared with 41% of those in the US. The same goes for weekly podcast listening: 26% of Australians are weekly podcast listeners compared with 28% of those in the US.
- Australians report spending over 12 hours per week listening to online audio. This includes listening to AM/FM/DAB+ Radio Stations online, streaming services and podcasts. In the last week, 42% have listened to Spotify, 16% to YouTube music, 8% to Apple Music, 5% to SoundCloud and 1% to Amazon Music. Listeners in Australia are more likely to listen to online audio streaming services in the car than listeners in the US. 39% of in-car listeners in Australia have listened to online streaming services compared to 31% of listeners in the US.
- For those who listen to AM/FM/DAB+ online, there are many device choices: 46% listen through the radio station’s website, 44% listen through the radio station’s app, 38% listen through an aggregator app or website, and 23% listen through a smart speaker.
- 26% of Australians now own a smart speaker, and smart speaker owners have an average of 1.9 of these devices.
- 25% of Australian drivers own an in-dash system that can receive entertainment/information over the Internet
- At-home is the location most Australians have consumed a podcast: 87% percent of monthly podcast listeners have listened at home, 59% have listened in a car/truck, 51% have listened while walking around, 39% have listened while riding public transportation, 27% have listened at work, and 24% have listened at the gym or while working out.
- Australian podcast listeners listen to an average of five podcasts per week.
The Infinite Dial 2021 Australia report is freely available and can be downloaded here.
