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Audio podcasting is more popular than radio for the first time in history. We're going to be talking about that and a bit more in this week's episode of Podcast Answer Man. Well, hello and welcome back to another episode of Podcast Answer Man. My name is Cliff Ravenscraft and this, my friend, is the podcast devoted to podcasting, helping you take your message, your business and your life to the next level. That's right. It doesn't matter if you have been podcasting for many years or if you are brand new to this content creating world, there's something we can all do to take everything we do in life to the next level. And in this week's episode to take things to the next level, I'm going to give myself a little bit of a challenge. I want to do something I haven't done in quite some time and that is a live to drive from beginning to end with no stops, no starts. I haven't done it in a while, but I'm going to do it today. And one of the reasons because is because I'm sitting here recording this on a Thursday evening. It's 7:17pm I just got back from having dinner with my wife. I told her earlier, I said hey, I think I'm gonna have to come back down to the office tonight and record the this week's episode of Podcast Answer Man. Because I got so busy, so involved in a project that I want to talk about in this episode, I've been vibe coding my own podcast related software. I'm going to tell you a little bit about it, but first I want to talk about the fact that podcasting, audio podcasting specifically for the first time in history is more popular among Americans than talk radio, AM fm, talk radio radio. This comes from an article that my dear friend Stuart Crane sent to me via text message this morning. Stuart, thank you so much. It is an article from CNET and it says podcast listenership outranks talk radio for the first time in history. Now before I get into the stats and what was discovered, I want to talk about my own experience with talk radio. I have been a fan of radio since I was a kid. I shared my story in many different interviews over the years where I talked about my favorite toy as a kid was Mr. Microphone. It was a little plastic toy microphone and it had a telescoping aluminum antenna and it had a tiny little super low power FM transmitter that you had to go over and tune your your radio to a specific station that was typically unused by any other stations out there. You turn on the power and speak into the microphone and I heard my voice on the radio. It was magical. As a kid, I grew up listening to a lot of radio and I remember listening to a lot of vintage talk radio. I loved audio dramas, I loved people just having conversations about things. I also loved music. Don't get me wrong, I will say that my love for music dampened in, I'd say the 90s and early 2000s. And it has a lot to do with just digital rights management. The RIAA organization that was suing people for, you know, copyright infringement and all this other stuff. And they just made it so difficult, so challenging to share music that you love with people and that I wanted to be behind a microphone and share what I love. And I loved a lot of music at the time, but it was not legal for me to create that kind of content. And creating content is something that's always been on my heart. I recall when I was a teenager, a young, like, I don't know, 13 years old, something like that, I had a CB radio from radio Shack and I had a big antenna and I would broadcast my voice within about a 10 to 15 mile radius. And for me, that reached a lot of people. I live in Northern Kentucky and I'm right across the river from Cincinnati, Ohio. I'm up on a big giant hill and so line of sight. I had the ability to reach all sorts of people, literally hundreds and hundreds of people with. Also at the time, CB radio was a big thing and people would listen to me. I'd host my own radio show every Tuesday night. It wasn't legal, but I did it. I would key up the mic and I would talk for 10, 15, 20 minutes. And then I would take in live callers by unkeying the mic and letting other people ask me questions and interact with me and engage with me. It was a blast. Of course I wasn't sharing music back then, but it was just talk radio. And I had a live call in show on cb rig radio. And then of course growing up, I remember just calling in and putting in a request to the local radio station for a specific song. Maybe it was a dedication to a girl that I might have been interested in at the time and things like that. And they would record you calling in and then you would hear your own voice. I would hear my own voice played on the air. I'd go to the school the next day. It's like, hey Cliff, I heard you on the radio. I'm like, yes. These kind of things really lit me up. And then When I guess I was probably in my late 20s, I started listening to a lot of talk radio. I was not listening to music as much. I would listen to a lot of radio broadcasts for Christian broadcasting back in the day. And there were lots of different programs that were along that interest line for me. And it was fascinating to hear all of these people communicate things related to faith that were intriguing to learn at the very least for me. And then I was never into sports myself, but at the time, there was a season of my life where I was interested in. In political things. A lot of that came from my upbringing and my community around me and stuff like that. And I would listen to a lot of political talk radio because, well, talk radio, which is what I was drawn to as far as an interest. I'm in the car, I don't want to listen to all of this music with all of these advertisements and all this other stuff. So I would listen to talk radio while I was commuting, while I was out driving, doing lots of things in the car. And I just remember, like, okay, their only options here is religious broadcasting. There is political talk radio, there's a lot of sports talk radio. And then the only other topic I think that was out there was car talk. And I'm not a car guy. And there may have been some other offshoots of some interesting things. Like late at night, I think there was that guy named Art Bell that had some real weird and strange out there kind of stuff. But I was a talk radio listener, consumer of, of that content all the way up until 2005 when. Oh, by the way, I will say that when Dave Ramsey came on the scene with, it was the first kind of personal slash professional development kind of content. I. I was like, you know what? Sure, I'm interested in becoming debt free. And as a result of listening to talk radio, my wife and I began that debt snowball and did the total money makeover. And we went. It took us several years, but we went from tens of thousands of dollars in debt all the way down to no debt outside of our mortgage in February 2007, which, if it wasn't for talk radio, I wouldn't have come across Dave Ramsey. And if it wasn't Dave Ramsey, I wouldn't have become debt free. And if I wasn't debt free, I don't know that I would have ever made the decision to leave my day job and pursue podcasting full time. So I owe a great deal to talk radio. I've always had a passion for radio. So when I Started podcasting as a hobby. Months before that, I was already consuming podcasts. And I recognized something. I was still doing a lot of driving, but I did notice that my radio consumption went down to zero percent, which was a massive shift for me. And there was just something about this idea that I could go and listen to an audio program, a people talking, and all of a sudden I don't have to listen to religious broadcasting. I don't have to listen. I wasn't gonna listen to sports anyway. I don't have to listen to car talk and I don't even have to listen to politics. But instead I could listen to people talk about technology. I could listen to people talk about a television show. I could listen to people talk about all sorts of random things that I am actually interested in. Not only that, I remember when I used to drive to go visit a client back in my insurance days. Some of the commercial clients that I had, I would drive to their location and I'd be right in the middle of a talk radio. And they'd been teasing that they're gonna get to this topic. And I'm like, I gotta hear what they're gonna say about that topic. I've been waiting and then all of a sudden they go to commercial and it's like. And they tease it again until the next commercial. And then I get to the client's office and then it's time for me to go in. I can't show up late. And so I come back out and of course that topic's done gone. And in those days there were no recordings. You couldn't go back and listen. And that was one of the things I found so frustrating with radio, is that they didn't have a DVR for radio. So anyway, I fell out of love. I fell out of the habit of consuming any radio content. In fact, I don't think I've listened to more than 30 minutes of any radio audio like music or talk since 2005. It is just as far as I'm concerned. Sometimes I forget radio broadcasting still exists. However, it was still the primary way people listened to spoken word audio was on the radio. And there are a lot of people who prefer to have their mind stimulated when they're out and about doing a commute. And so even like 10 years after I started podcasting, and then I was full time self employed. So let's go all the way to 2015. I'd already been doing this stuff for a decade, and in 2015, only 10% of Americans above the age of 13 listened to spoken word audio. However, in 2015, when Edison Research was doing this research, back in these days, 75% of all Americans above the age of 13 consumed spoken word content over radio. Now, if you put those two numbers together, that's 85%. Now, one of the things that I am not quite certain of when it comes to this research, does it mean that 75% or 80, you know, 75% of all Americans over the. And it says here, percent of daily spoken word audio time spent with AMF radio and podcasts. So I'm wondering if they did a research project where they're asking, do you listen to spoken word audio? And they said, yes. Okay, and how do you consume it? And it's out of those people who answer the question, yes, I consume spoken word audio, 75% of those people who do this listen to it on, you know, got their spoken word audio from radio and 10% got it from podcasts. Because I gotta tell you, to think that 10% of all Americans consuming audio podcasts in 2015, I don't know. It's something I should probably look into. What I do know is that this research has been done year by year ever since they started to have an interest over at Edison Research about the consumption of podcasting. And I saw that podcasting kind of went up and up and up. And it certainly has had a plateau. At one point, certainly during 2020, during the pandemic, the actual amount dropped for the first time. I think actually the second time, it had a 1% drop in 2016, and it had a 4% drop in from 2020 to 2021. But it's been rising each year. And for the first time ever, audio podcasting has become more popular than radio when it comes to consumption of spoken word audio. So here's what research shows. Now, as of December 2025, 40% of those who consume, and this is what I'm thinking, it has to be. 40% of those who consume spoken word audio get that spoken word audio from podcasting, and 39% get it from radio. That is the first time radio has dropped below podcasting. For those who are consuming audio content, this is huge. And I'm looking at this graph, and I can tell you right now, it's only going to increase the amount of people who are consuming audio podcasts in the car on those commutes. They're catching on. And popularity of podcasting today is just multiplying. It seems like every week I'm hearing a new story about how mainstream media, even Hollywood and all of these awards shows are now giving out awards for best podcast. And you know, the, it, it's a lot of people are up in arms about the fact that it's like all of a sudden now all these celebrities and a listers and all this other stuff, they're, they come around and there's no thought given to the independent podcasters who have been doing this for 20 years and all this other stuff. But if there's one thing that's going for all of this, the question what's a podcast? Is no longer being asked these days. Or it's very rare. Whereas 10 years ago, if you told somebody, hey, I produce a podcast on such and such topic, it was quite frequent. Somebody, you'd have to explain to them what a podcast is, how you consume a podcast. And I want to say this shout out to radio. For a lot of the growth of podcasting, radio began to recognize that podcasting was eating their lunch. You got iHeartRadio, who then began buying up a lot of podcast content. They began to create recorded shows of the radio shows that they're putting on the radio. And they were advertising heavily that you can get the replay of the episodes that are being broadcast on the radio on the iHeartradio platform. And there were other radio people into it as well. And, and, and as a result of that, they were taking these radio shows and these people who don't know what a podcast is, and they're consistently saying, you can listen to the whole show on, on podcast by getting this app. And of course, it was a very specific app produced by the radio industry and stuff like that. But once people recognize that, wow, I can get these shows that I've been listening to and I don't have to worry about missing it because it was live and I had to get out of my car to go back into work or whatever, this, this is very convenient. And so I love the fact that iHeartRadio and all these other podcast one and all these other places began to promote the technology of podcasting to their live radio show audiences. And the great news is that once they discovered that these podcasts exist, a lot of us as indie podcasters have the ability to go in and get our own independently produced shows in those same apps. Now some of them are exclusive and you have to get approved and they become a gatekeeper. But all of a sudden there are a couple of standout shows that begin to get a lot of popularity and word gets round that, hey, did you hear such and such podcast? And they're like looking at their radio station podcast app and they're searching for this podcast that everyone is talking about, but it's not there. And guess what? It's at that point where they at least know what a podcast is. And then they now become aware that this exclusive radio app doesn't have the podcast they're looking for that everyone is talking about that they desperately want to hear. And they go find a different app that allows them to experience even more. And so this is all kind of just been working as a firestorm to make podcasting just as a platform to listen to spoken word content that you're interested in, that you can take with you anywhere. It's just growing in popularity and I love it. Anyway, the whole point here is that this first article that my friend Stuart sent me, it basically is from CNET that says that Edison research has now shown that those who consume spoken word audio content above the age of 13 in America went from 10% in 2015 to now 40% of the of people above the age of 13 now consuming audio via podcast. And it is dropped for radio from 75% down to 39. And I'm looking at this graph. They're crisscrossed. And I know that it's going to continue to grow that percentage because there's just so much value in portable on demand content that you can listen to where you want, when you want. And not only that, but there's a lot more options for to listen to what you want. And not to mention the fact that if you stick with the traditional method of podcasting, you can skip all of those ads. And I got to tell you, as much as some people don't like it, I'm a huge fan of skipping every ad. I'd pay for great content if you gave me an ad free version of it. But if you're gonna throw in a bunch of ads and stuff like that, if I can skip them, I'm gonna skip them. That's just the way it is. Anyway, there's another article, this one actually comes from iHeartMedia and they did a State of Podcasting in 2026 article. And let me just read to you what I've got here. It says, consumers are navigating noisy feeds. By the way, the article has a little section that says why podcasting matters more now than ever. Consumers are navigating noisy feeds, questionable information, and an overwhelming amount of automated content. Podcasts stand out because they feel genuinely human. People choose shows intentionally, they spend real time with them, they build long term relationships with the hosts of these podcasts. That's the foundation that makes podcast advertising so effective. Now, I will say, I want to point out here, podcast advertising is incredibly effective. And while I do make a point to tell you that I will skip every ad that I have a chance to skip, there are some content creators that have done a very decent job with the way that they incorporate ads into their show. And I can say this, that the person that I've had do this the best in the early days would be Leo laporte, especially when they had Audible as a sponsor. And rather than reading a host read thing that was a script that they had to read from Audible, instead they would just sit there and do Audible picks. And occasionally they would actually have a great fit for me. They would have somebody that had an app or some sort of software as a service, and I would hear about it as a result of them being a sponsor. And the great news is that, hey, I either have made a decision after listening to the ad, this is of interest to me, or this is not of interest to me. And I love the fact that I can skip it once I've made that determination. And the number of times when this is not interesting to me, this is not interesting to me. But about four or five months later, I come across something where I'm like, oh, I wish I had a service that would allow me to do this. I remember such and such, and because they were an advertiser on a podcast, I instantly thought of them first. So podcast advertising is very effective. With that being said, I still hate to listen to ads. Anyway, continuing on in this article, this is a different one than the Edison research. Now, this is iHeartRadio's study. Listen to this. More than half of all Americans now listen to podcasts every month. And daily listening is rising across every age group. I just want to say that again, more than half you put 10 people in a room and at least five of them are listening to podcasts every single month. And almost all of them are beginning to get into a routine of listening to podcasts on a daily basis. This is mind boggling. You know, I hear people talk about the fact that, you know, you had to really get into podcasting back when you did, Cliff, because today there's just so much, so much content out there, so much noise. And I'm like, yeah, but if you were to compare the number of people who are looking for content in podcast form today, who are aware of what a podcast is, who are actively seeking out podcast content on Their favorite topics that speak to who they are, that resonates with them, that helps them in some way. Compare that to where we were in 2006 and 7 and 8. I'm going to tell you right now there is more opportunity for you to reach an audience today. There are more people out there consuming content, percentage wise, that today's a brilliant time to start podcasting. Anyway. More than half of all Americans now listen to a podcast, and every month. And daily listening is rising across every age group. I love this. It says here younger listeners are leaning in. Older listeners are discovering the medium in record numbers. I can tell you right now, my mom and dad, who, you know, I'm 53, I think I am. Anyway, my mom and dad obviously know what podcasting is, but you know what, their friends, their peers, everyone's grandparents today, they also know what podcasting is. And the number of them who are actually tuning into podcasts, it's increasing, even in the boomer demographic. It's awesome. It says here once people start listening, they stay many, finish full episodes, and often binge multiple shows a week. And you might be saying, yeah, I don't know about that one. Do people really listen to full episodes of podcasts? Well, let me ask you this. Are you still listening to my voice right now? Okay. And you might ask yourself, do people really binge listen to podcasts? Well, let's just tune in real quickly here to the speakpipe voicemail feedback hotline, and I'll share with you something that came in from Mike Hill this week. Here's what he had to say to me.