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Edison Research has been measuring podcast listening since 2006. As podcasting has grown, one question we are asked frequently is how the demographics of the podcast audience has changed over time. Just yesterday, Edison VP Megan Lazovick and VP of Sales Research at SiriusXM Media Melissa Paris detailed findings from part one of the Women’s Audio Report. The study, from Edison Research and SiriusXM Media highlights the growth of podcasting among women.
The report dives deep into all aspects of how women in the U.S. engage with audio, with a particular focus on their consumption and usage of podcasts. Since 2015, the percent of U.S. women 18+ who have ever listened to a podcast has climbed from 29% to 68%, representing an increase of over 130%. The most significant growth story relates to women’s monthly podcast listening. As the graph below shows, monthly podcast listenership among women has tripled in the past ten years (from 15% to 45%). Podcast listening has now become a monthly habit for approximately 60 million U.S. women 18+.
The number of women listening to podcasts is not the only thing that has changed since 2015. How people engage with podcasts is also vastly different, with visual platforms like YouTube disrupting the space. Edison’s podcast measurement has been updated to accurately reflect and capture all of the ways people can engage with podcasts, as you can see above and learn more about in our 2025 Infinite Dial report. The podcast viewing audience is additive to the space, with 72% of women 18+ ever watching or listening to a podcast and 52% doing so in the past month. Podcasts in some shape or form now reach the majority of U.S. women 18+ monthly, with approximately 70 million women listening or watching in the past month.
This impressive reach story is just one of many interesting insights included in part one of the Women’s Audio Report. Register here for part two of the Women’s Audio Report from SiriusXM Media and Edison Research on Tuesday April 29th, at 2pm ET.
