Business podcasts are most oversupplied genre relative to listener demand, finds WhichPodcast

The business category is the most oversupplied podcast genre relative to listener demand, according to recent data from WhichPodcast.

The podcast search engine analysed 19 genres using Apple Podcasts categories, comparing the number of active shows with listener demand. It gave each genre a supply index and demand score, with the gap between the two determining whether it was classified as an ‘opportunity’, ‘competitive’, ‘balanced’ or ‘oversaturated’ genre.

The demand score is based on anonymised search and browse data and also factors in the average subscriber-to-show ratio among the top 100 shows in each category.

The Business genre had a demand score of 70, but the category’s 122,000 shows – the highest of all the genres analysed – gave it a supply index of 100, resulting in a gap score of -30. As a result, Business ranked as the most oversaturated genre, suggesting it is highly competitive for new podcasts trying to break through.

By contrast, the Kids & Family genre offered the greatest opportunity. It had a demand score of 74 – higher than Business – but just 33,000 shows, giving it a supply index of 27 and a gap score of +47. WhichPodcasts says the findings suggest parents are actively searching for this content, despite the relatively small number of shows.

Other oversaturated genres included Health & Fitness, Education, Religion, and Society & Culture, while Music, TV & Film, History, Science, and Fiction were classified as having opportunity.

True Crime and News were both crowded genres, with show counts of 85,000 and 74,000, respectively, but their demand scores were high enough to keep them in the competitive zone rather than oversaturated.

The data excluded YouTube-only podcasts and only included ‘active’ English-language shows. WhichPodcast also noted that a single show can be tagged in multiple categories.

Is this reflected in advertising investment?

While the research looks at listener demand rather than advertising investment, the findings raise questions about whether advertiser demand is similarly concentrated in certain podcast genres.

Patrick Dolan, head of display and audio at independent media agency the7stars, said business and finance podcasts can attract a disproportionate share of investment because their audience often includes high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals, who can be “increasingly difficult” to reach through other media channels.

“We do see some concentration of demand within these categories, while other genres can be comparatively underutilised despite attracting highly engaged audiences,” he said.

Despite the large number of Business podcasts, Jess Bernard, group audio director at Goodstuff, said they have limited availability for advertisers compared with other categories, because fewer shows have clients wanting to advertise around them. This can make securing host-read inventory a challenge.

“We also find this across larger, more popular podcasts,” she said. “Food clients tend to want to be around food content like Table Manners, which is often low on inventory.”

She added that clients looking to reach parents through parenting podcasts can face similar challenges, and the agency recommends considering what else their target audience listens to.

“Knowing these podcasts will likely be saturated with others doing the same thing, we would try and recommend thinking about what else the parent audience may be listening to and plan campaigns around this,” she said.

Nicola Martin-Smith, head of publishing and audio at Zenith, echoedthis, saying context matters when buying podcasts, and agencies need to educate clients to look beyond podcasts that directly fit their category.

“Brands will assume that they need to directly relate to their category, but understanding what their audience actually spends time with will uncover much greater opportunities,” she said.

Both Dolan and Bernard explained that when buying podcast inventory, the audience and a client’s brief is the starting point. Nonetheless, Dolan added that genre “remains an important consideration, particularly when looking at the credibility of the environment and the opportunity to integrate messaging naturally into the content.”