A Pew Internet Project survey finds some 12% of internet users, the equivalent of about 17 million adults, say they have downloaded a podcast so they can listen to it or view it at a later time. As the array of individuals and mainstream media institutions providing podcasts has expanded rapidly so too has the audience for downloadable video, images and text. The latest estimate reflects an increase from the 7% of internet users who reported podcast downloading in a February-April 2006 survey. However, few internet users download podcasts with great frequency; just 1% report downloading a podcast on a typical day. Men are more likely than women to report podcast downloading (15% of online men vs. 8% of online women) and those with more than six years of online experience are twice as likely as those with less than three years of internet use to have downloaded a podcast (13% vs. 6%). Read More

Russell Heimlich  is a former web developer at Pew Research Center.