During a year in which the Sports and Health & Fitness genres have had some of the biggest growth numbers, something different happened last week. Podcast listeners opted for a bit of culture. Podtrac says the Arts category had the strongest week-to-week growth numbers among the publishers it measures. Shows in the Arts genre posted a four percent increase in downloads compared to a week earlier.
The Health & Fitness genre did not have growth week-to-week. Podtrac says its downloads were down four percent last week versus a week earlier. Nevertheless, the category had the best year-to-year growth numbers last week of any genre. Health & Fitness downloads were up 212% from the same week a year ago.
Overall, Podtrac says downloads were down two percent last week from a week earlier. They were however up 64% over the corresponding period last year for Podtrac measured shows.
Sports was the only other genre that showed week-to-week growth last week. Its downloads rose three percent. The rest were either down — including Society & Culture (-10%), True Crime (-4%), Science (-4%), History (-4%), and Business (-2%) – while News and Comedy were both flat week-to-week.
Podtrac earlier reported that the average top 20 publisher had a three percent month-over-month decrease in their U.S. unique monthly audience last month. But compared to a year earlier, July 2022’s unique reach for the top 20 publishers was up seven percent versus July 2021.
In terms of downloads, Podtrac says global downloads for the top 20 publishers overall increased three percent month-over-month during July. They were also up seven percent compared to the download numbers from a year earlier.
Among the publishers it measures, Podtrac says iHeartMedia had the most listeners and downloads, followed by Wondery, NPR, the New York Times, and NBC News.