News Platform Fact Sheet
How Americans get news has greatly changed in the 21st century. Most now use digital devices for news at least sometimes. Read about the platforms they turn to.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Audio, Radio & Podcasts
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Audio, Radio & Podcasts
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Most Top-Ranked Podcasts Bring On Guests
Thousands of guests appeared on the top-ranked podcasts in 2022, but a relatively small number accounted for a majority of appearances. 76% of top-ranked podcasts brought on at least one guest in 2022, and 27% almost always or regularly featured guests.
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An Audio Tour Through America’s Top-Ranked Podcasts
To offer a taste of the variety of topics the top-ranked podcasts represent, and to give a sense of what podcast listeners experience, we compiled clips from the shows we studied.
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Q&A: How we used large language models to identify guests on popular podcasts
We asked researchers how they used the newest generation of large language models to analyze roughly 24,000 podcast episodes.
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For National Radio Day, key facts about radio listeners and the radio industry in the U.S.
About eight-in-ten Americans ages 12 and older listen to terrestrial radio in a given week.
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Public Broadcasting Fact Sheet
Hundreds of local and regional radio and television stations comprise the U.S. public media system.
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True crime podcasts are popular in the U.S., particularly among women and those with less formal education
True crime stands out as the most common topic of top-ranked podcasts in the United States.
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A Profile of the Top-Ranked Podcasts in the U.S.
True crime is the most common topic, making up 24% of top-ranked podcasts; 15% of the top podcasts focus on news. The next most common topics are politics and government (10%); entertainment, pop culture and the arts (9%); and self-help and relationships (8%).
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Black U.S. podcast listeners choose distinct topics, have different reasons for listening than other groups
At least half of Black podcast listeners regularly listen to podcasts about entertainment and pop culture; self-help and relationships; comedy; and money and finance.
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Podcasts as a Source of News and Information
Roughly half of U.S. adults say they have listened to a podcast in the past year, including one-in-five who report listening at least a few times a week. Most podcast listeners say this experience includes hearing news, which they largely expect to be mostly accurate. Large shares of listeners say they turn to podcasts for entertainment, learning or having something to listen to while doing something else.
