The podcast listener journey reveals a desire for human connection

As the global podcast industry zeros in on video – especially social video – one overlooked discovery source has never really gone away: word of mouth. Despite a format that was born to be digital, podcasting still relies on the most analog of recommendation systems for discovery in the US, UK, and France.

In the US, digital podcast recommendations on podcast apps are the number six discovery source, with only 18% of listeners finding podcasts via this method. This suggests that podcast platforms are losing out on opportunities for user engagement, and podcast discovery is being outsourced to video platforms and analog recommendations, i.e., word of mouth. 

While YouTube and TikTok clips are the number one source of podcast discovery across markets, word of mouth is number two in the US, and that is despite the fact that podcast listening happens predominantly on platforms where algorithmic recommendations are essential to the experience of digital media consumption. Word of mouth is also the number two discovery source in France and number three in the UK. 

Video and word of mouth may seem like very different sources of discovery, with the former happening online and the latter happening offline, but they share one very crucial thing in common: both are social in their own ways. Watching video may happen alone, but oftentimes a video podcast features real people talking to one another and indirectly to the listener. 

It is true that video (and podcasting writ large) involves more of a parasocial relationship between listeners and hosts, but this further highlights the fact that video’s importance to podcasting stems from the same reasoning for listeners turning to people in the real world to discover new podcasts: human connection. 

Western listeners are less inclined to trust an autoplay recommendation on an audio app and more inclined to trust a human face. Whether during podcast discovery or podcast consumption, human connection – digital or analogue, parasocial or social – is consistent in the podcast listener journey in the US, UK, and France. This is key for platforms and creators to understand as they grow podcast consumption at the industry level and the individual level. Platforms and creators must remember that podcasts are, on the whole, a very human-forward, and they are likely to remain that way no matter how sophisticated recommendation algorithms and AI-generated media get.

To find out what the podcast listener journey looks like around the world, including where podcast listeners go after listening, download MIDiA’s new report, “Before and after podcasts: Mapping the podcast listener journey”, here.