Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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Finding and maintaining an audience for a podcast can be challenging, so most podcasts make their content widely available. The vast majority of top-ranked podcasts studied are available on several major listing sites, with few podcasts exclusive to one site. Nearly all top podcasts (99%) are available on Spotify, and roughly nine-in-ten top podcasts are […]
While podcasts cover a broad range of topics, true crime is by far the most common topic of top-ranked podcasts. About a quarter of top podcasts (24%) are primarily about true crime – often investigations into murders, scandals and other criminal acts. Many of these focus on a single crime across the series, such as […]
A declining share of U.S. adults are following the news closely, and audiences are shrinking for several older types of news media.
U.S. adults under 30 follow news less closely than any other age group. And they’re more likely to get (and trust) news from social media.
About three-quarters of U.S. adults say they’ve seen inaccurate election news at least somewhat often, and many say it’s hard to tell what’s true.
Names of the 451 top-ranked podcasts included in this report
Our researchers cast a wide net across the most popular social media sites to form an inclusive list of influencers who regularly discuss news.
About eight-in-ten Americans ages 12 and older listen to terrestrial radio in a given week.
This study takes a close look at key characteristics of podcasts. It is a part of Pew Research Center’s examination of the role of podcasts in the news and information environment in the U.S. Researchers conducted an audit of 451 “top-ranked podcasts,” which are English-language podcasts that appeared on top podcast charts regularly in the […]
Roughly half of U.S. adults say they have listened to a podcast in the past year, including one-in-five who report listening at least a few times a week. Most podcast listeners say this experience includes hearing news, which they largely expect to be mostly accurate. Large shares of listeners say they turn to podcasts for entertainment, learning or having something to listen to while doing something else.
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