Podcasting has surged to the forefront as an effective channel for advertisers to connect with audiences in unique and engaging ways. In our previous article, we reported on the remarkable growth of podcast ad revenue compared to other digital media like search, video and social media.
Looking at data from the International Advertising Bureau (IAB), Statista, and Rephonic’s own podcast database, we set out to uncover the genres and locations where podcasters earn disproportionately more (or less) [2].
TL;DR:
- True Crime shows generate the most ad revenue per show
- Sports podcasts generate the highest revenue per listener
- Podcasts in Sweden generate the most ad revenue on average
- Podcasts in Finland generate the most revenue per listener
🔪 True Crime shows get the most ad revenue per show (and it's not even close)
First we examined statistics for each podcast genre, using US ad revenue data provided by the IAB and the number of active shows according to Rephonic’s database [3]. We found that ad revenue for the True Crime category is significantly overrepresented when compared to the number of active shows.
Despite representing only 0.84% of total active shows in the US, True Crime podcasts rake in an impressive 7% of total ad revenue. With an average yearly revenue of $55k per active podcast*, the True Crime category is head and shoulders above the rest.
So, does that mean new True Crime shows will find it easy to start monetizing?
Not necessarily.
Roughly 40% of ad spend across all genres goes to top 500 shows. For the True Crime category, this translates to 40% of ad spend being spent on the top 23% of podcasts.
*In other words, perhaps a lot of the ad revenue is going to giant shows like Crime Junkie and it's skewing the numbers.
Having said that, a significant slice of a generously sized pie is being distributed to True Crime shows that don’t make the charts, so monetization is still possible.
🏈 Sports podcasts generate the highest revenue per listener
As a podcaster, typically you want to achieve a high amount of revenue per listener. To understand this metric better, we looked at podcast listenership estimates as measured by Rephonic and broke it down by genre, which we then compared to ad spend [4].
Please note that Rephonic’s listener figures are only estimates, but taken in aggregate they are useful for making comparisons between genres.
Our analysis found that for active shows, Sports podcasts generate the highest revenue per listener on average. On the other hand, if you run a Leisure podcast, the chances are that you’ll need a much larger listener base to match the average revenue generated by podcasts in other categories.
Looking at the previous two charts, True Crime, Sports and Comedy genres have high averages in terms of revenue generated per podcast and per listener.
This suggests that these genres have a greater potential for monetization, but again, large shows could be skewing the data.
🇸🇪 Podcasts in Sweden generate the most ad revenue on average
Rephonic provides the primary audience location (on a country level) for each podcast so we used this data to calculate the number of active shows by country and compare it to ad revenue stats provided by Statista [5].
Out of the countries we included, we discovered that Sweden is an outlier, with ad revenue significantly overrepresented when compared to the number of active shows. Podcasts in Sweden generate an average of just over $13k per year.
Ad revenue in Ireland emerged as most underrepresented of all countries, with an average annual ad revenue per show of just $1617.
🇫🇮 Podcasts in Finland generate the most revenue per listener
This time we compared ad revenue figures to the number of listeners by country and found that Finland came out on top. This suggests that there is a disproportionate investment in podcast ads in Finland compared to the number of listeners.
Looking at Rephonic’s stats, we found no podcast targeting a Finnish audience with more than 40k estimated listeners per week.
Despite not ranking first like it did in the previous chart, Sweden makes the top half of this leaderboard, with Ireland once again at the bottom.
Final thoughts
While our findings suggest that certain genres and countries might not be the best for advertising revenue, it’s not always that straightforward. In each category there’s a lot of variation; successfully monetizing a show depends on a range of factors, like the quality of the show, its marketability and the effectiveness of the marketing strategy.
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Footnotes
[1] According to Statista, podcast advertising revenue is projected to hit $3.46bn in 2023. Rephonic counts ‘active’ podcasts as those that have published a new episode in the last 45 days. We counted just over 382k active shows.
[2] For all of the charts, we excluded shows that haven’t published a new episode in the last 45 days. We included ‘active’ podcasts only.
[3] We took the total US podcast ad revenue in 2022 provided by the IAB and calculated the revenue generated by each category using the percentage share figures provided by the IAB.
[4] We included shows with an audience that is primarily based in the US and compared it to total US ad spend in 2022.
[5] Please note that global figures provided by Statista may be less accurate. These figures are projections for 2023.
