Giving Them Something To Talk About
When people ask about what kind of programming we air on KXEL, I try not to use terms like “news” or “talk”…because they imply certain perspectives that are not entirely accurate. Instead, I say we do “spoken word radio” as opposed to “music radio”. It’s a term that is gaining acceptance, in large part because of the popularity of podcasts.
A new report from Edison Research and NPR shows that almost half of the U.S. population—46 percent—listens to spoken word audio content each and every day…and that number has been climbing steadily for some time.
In their view, spoken word audio includes news, sports, talk and interview programs, personalities, and even audiobooks. And an estimated 26 million more people are listening to spoken word audio in the U.S. now than was the case just eight years ago. It was 105 million in 2014…131 million now.
Experts say that those who listen to spoken word audio are highly engaged; music tends to float into the background sometimes, but you have to really be paying attention when people are speaking.
The study shows that the increase is not limited to one time of day or another…it’s across the board. And it’s not just for older folks. Younger demographics are increasingly more interested in audio…those between the ages of 13-24 now spend 22 percent of their audio time with spoken word…way up from only 7 percent in 2014. Phrased another way, the number of younger folks listening to spoken word audio is up 214 percent in less than a decade.
And those who come…stay. Americans aged 13-34 more than doubled their time with spoken word audio over the past eight years…but the increase in time spent is true for all demographics.
This last part makes me happy…radio continues to dominate, with 47 percent of time spent with spoken word audio being done by listening to the radio. That’s more than double the number for podcasts.
