Over 81% of Podcast Listeners Skip Commercials

If you listened to a podcast recently, chances are, you didn’t hear many commercials. But that’s not because there weren’t any.

Here at Pacific Content we recently decided to survey people about skipping commercials when listening to podcasts. We used the Google Insights online tool to conduct the survey, and found some surprising results.

Ad skipping has apparently become the norm. It now seems to be standard practice in our consumption of media, a function that podcast listeners seem to appreciate.

When asked on a scale of 1 to 10 “How Much Do you Appreciate The Ability to Skip Ads When Listening to Podcasts?” 49.2% of people responded with a rating of 10/10 that they appreciate skipping ads “very much” with an average of score of 7.2/10.

The skip ahead function on popular platforms such as iTunes and Stitcher clearly has an impact on the way we consume advertisements in podcasts. In fact, people may skip ads more often than they listen to them.

Our research found that 49.3% of people skip ads “all the time” while another 31.9% skip ads “most of the time”. Only 12% of listeners never skip ads.

Source: Google Insights survey conducted by Pacific Content on Feb 26 and Mar 02 2016. Excludes those that do not listen to podcasts.

This may not come as a surprise to the average consumer of podcasts. But we suspect it could be a surprise to the decision makers purchasing the ads.

This is not to say that podcasts are not a good medium for brands to reach an audience. Monthly podcast listening in America has more than doubled from 2008–2016 according to Edison Research. In just one year from 2015 to 2016, the monthly audience grew by 24% to an estimated 57 million listeners in America alone.

Source: Edison Research, Mar 01, 2016

Yet as the Podcast audience continues to grow, it appears that advertisements are increasingly being ignored via the skip button.

Which is why at Pacific Content, we’re excited about Branded Podcasts. The objective of a Branded Podcast is to make compelling content that speaks to your brand values but contains no traditional commercials interruptions. No advertisements, but rather brand engagement at a whole new level.

Podcasts are an excellent platform to deeply engage an audience; to build a meaningful connection through storytelling that relates to your brand and your audience. But instead of renting the audience of someone else’s podcast with a high likelihood of your ad never being heard, become your own media company, own your audience, and make a podcast that people love.

Survey Details:

We conducted 3 surveys using Google Insights market research tool in Feb/Mar 2016. Two surveys asked the question: “When Listening to Podcasts Do You Skip Commercials?” One in Canada with 258 responses and one in the United States with 269 responses. The data was combined and those who do not listen to podcasts were removed. The third survey asked on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being “Don’t Care” and 10 being “Very Much”: “How Much Do you Appreciate The Ability to Skip Ads When Listening to Podcasts?” This was conducted in the United States only and generated 339 responses. The average score was 7.2/10.