Key findings from the study include:

Podcasting continues to grow quickly: Audio podcast listeners grew from 13% of Americans to 18% and video podcast consumption grew from 11% to 15%.

Podcasts enable more media consumption: The people consuming podcasts spent approximately 90 minutes longer per week listening to online audio than other online audio consumers

Podcast consumers are an attractive advertising demo: Podcast consumers are more likely to have a college degree and earn in excess of $75,000. They are also more frequent online shoppers and spend more money online than other Americans. These consumers are also adverse to interruption based advertising and use pop up blockers, SPAM filters and other tools to block out commercials.

Podcast consumers are internet social: 25% of them have MySpace pages and spend lots more time on the internet than non listeners.

Edison’s key takeaways from the study for podcasters:

• Podcasting is a viable alternative means to target attractive consumers who are otherwise proving difficult to reach with traditional advertising. Consumers get to choose what they subscribe to and when they subscribe they can be both more engaged and more loyal
• Podcasters should consider lifestyles, context and even potential ‘dayparting’ for their audiences. In other words, don’t just leave it to chance that people will listen to your podcast any old time. Give them a time and a reason to listen to your content.
• Take lessons from broadcast media and improve production, staging and create true ‘theatre of the mind.” Production quality matters when your competing with NPR et al. Make your podcasts sound and look good. Make them easy to understand.
• Remember the ‘Mid-Tail.’ Don’t think you have to focus on the “long tail” niches. There are good segments of mid-sized audiences that are undeserved by traditional media that can be targeted via podcasting. Edison points to BMW drivers as an example.

Via MWGBlog.com

[tags]market research, edison media research, media consumption, podcast consumption, podcast market size[/tags]