First service to track podcast listenership in UK

Kantar is expanding its UK entertainment panel services to cover consumer behaviour and attitudes to podcasts. The Great British Podcast Tracker is the first longitudinal service measuring podcast behaviour in the UK and will deliver a continuous, representative, single source of insight into this emerging medium.

James Foti, consumer insight director at Kantar, said: “We hear time and time again that this is the year of the podcast, with established players looking to get their slice of the action.  Podcasts are really becoming an established channel and marketers need to understand the role they play in the marketing mix.  Our new service will for the first time give a clear picture of who podcast listeners are, what other media they engage with and even where they last shopped.”

Insight available on a four-weekly basis from September 2019 will cover demographics, what platform podcast listeners are using, the genres they are listening to and for how long.  Alongside a historical dataset tracking panellist’s usage of music streaming and other media, this will give media buyers and brands unprecedented understanding of podcast listeners and how to target them effectively.

The new service is an addition to Kantar’s 15,000-strong lifestyle panel in the UK, making it a robust and continuous read which can be flexible to subscribers’ needs, and gives a rounded picture of podcast listeners’ behaviour, whether that’s the last film they saw in the cinema, their favourite websites and TV channels or their favourite fashion brand.

As part of the service, Kantar also plans to run a twice-annual deep dive into podcasts, with the aim of understanding the triggers and barriers to when it comes to listening to them.