This week IAB Europe held their “Digital Audio Day”mini conference. It was very much a growth story with worldwide growth in both consumption and spend despite the obvious difficulties around COVID.
Unsurprisingly podcasts were singled out for particular attention with their audience growth being higher than any of the other categories.
When it came to revenue most markets saw double digit growth in digital audio spend with Ireland posting an impressive 37.9% growth year on year.
At the conference IAB Ireland released their third wave of research on the digital audio landscape. The research titled “Listen Up Ireland” was conducted by Red C in June of this year following on from last year’s delayed September burst. It’s important to note that we were in a much more restrictive situation in September last year versus June this year due to government lockdown guidelines, which needs to be factored into any comparisons.
5 in 7 adults listen to digital audio at least once a week in Ireland, which is 2.53 million people. 15% of digital audio listeners do not listen on an FM device which is up 7% in 2020, showing real opportunities for incremental reach in digital listening.
Average weekly consumption is 15.3 hours, which is down 1.3 hours on September burst but still up 1.7 hours on 2019 research. This can be attributed to the increased mobility and freedom people have since June this year. Digital audio still plays a key part in people’s weekly media consumption and this will only continue to grow as more digital devices hit the market.
Men and younger age groups over index on consumption with 25-34’s consuming over 20 hours weekly.
Smartphones continue to dominate as the most used device for listening to digital audio, followed by desktop and in car. However smart speaker proliferation continues with 35% of Irish households owning a smart speaker and 14% planning to get one in the next 12 months.
The future looks bright with one in three expecting to increase digital audio listening next year. Nearly half of users say digital audio has introduced them to new content and two in five people are happy to listen to ads in return for free content.
urbanmedia offers digital audio opportunities across umax, our digital audio exchange, exclusive access to Premier League 20/21 content through talkSPORT Ireland and bespoke podcast creation in house. For more information please contact your urbanmedia representative.
Source: IAB Ireland “Listen Up Ireland” Red C Research
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