Podcasts are most popular in the evening

Published on: September 4, 2018 / update from: August 22, 2020 - Author: Konrad Wolfenstein

Podcasts are a popular medium in Germany, especially late at night. Around 63 percent of all podcast listeners prefer to consume audio streams in the evening or at night, as a study by Deloitte and Bitkom found. Only just under a third of those surveyed said they listened to podcasts early in the morning or at lunchtime.

Even though almost everyone has heard the word podcast, more than a decade after the term was invented, there is still ignorance and misunderstanding surrounding this medium. In contrast to classic media, a podcast does not have fixed broadcast times. This is also referred to as audio (or video) “on demand”.

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The Germans don’t like podcasts

In Germany, podcasts have recently become a real alternative to print and video. But compared to other countries, German citizens discover their love for the format relatively late. In the USA, for example, streamed programs have been part of every media company's media inventory for some time. As a study by the Reuters Institute for Journalism found, only 22 percent in this country regularly listen to podcasts. The leader is South Korea, where almost 60 percent of those surveyed said they tune into an audio or video stream at least once a month. In the United States, the birthplace of the podcast, it is still 33 percent.

Podcasts are increasingly falling on deaf ears in Germany in 2019. In a recent survey in the Reuters Digital News Report, only 21 percent of respondents said they had listened to a podcast in the past month. For comparison: In the USA it was 35 percent, in Spain 39 percent and in South Korea even more than half of those surveyed (53 percent), as the infographic shows. Germans most often listen to podcasts on news topics, followed by music and science and technology.

Infographic: Germans suck at podcasts | Statista