Podcast not as popular as first thought

People downloading podcasts are still in the minority according to research in America

11 April 2006 12:55 GMT / By Stuart Miles

People downloading podcasts are still in the minority according to research in America.

Although the word is currently the “Buzz” word of the moment, the number of US households listening to podcasts will increase to a mesely 12 million by 2010, a Forrester Research report has found.

However it's not all doom and gloom with research firm BMRB finding that nearly 8 million Britons will go in search of a podcast in the next 6 months according to a report on the BBC.

The survey of 5,000 US consumers by Forrester found that 3% had tried listening to a podcast.

Of them, 2% had experimented with audio downloads but did not listen on a regular basis.

According to the report there will be just 700,000 diehard downloaders in the US this year; a tiny audience compared to the 25 million people who tune into stations run by traditional broadcaster National Public Radio (NPR) every week.

The BBC said it has found that although its Chris Moyles podcast is popular, podcasts relating to Radio 4 shows, which normally attract an older audience, are gaining in popularity more than the corporation had originally anticipated.