80% fewer podcasts were launched in 2022 than in 2020

2022 was less fortunate for podcast listeners. According to data compiled by Chartr and Listen Notes, last year fewer new podcasts than in 2021, 2020 and 2019 were released.

Statistics show that the number of new shows created between 2020 and 2022 has dropped by almost 80%. Last year, 219,178 podcasts were launched, while 1,019,272 new podcasts appeared in 2020, a successful year for podcasting due to the pandemic and related global lockdowns. The year before, in 2019, 337,063 podcasts were launched.

While fewer podcasts were launched last year compared to previous years, there were still a significant number of episodes aired: 26,129,975. This is less than 2020, when over 30 million podcast episodes were released, but significantly more than in 2019 – 18,147,074 episodes.

According to Listen Notes, there are at least 3 million different podcasts and over 154 million episodes worldwide. Most of them are from the USA: about 2 million. Brazil, the second largest producer of podcasts, has 196,277 podcasts.

The majority of podcasts, 1.8 million, are in English, and 350,752 are in Spanish. The data also showed that the most popular genres of podcasts are society and culture, education and arts.

The Verge suggests that the lack of new podcasts in 2022 is due to high production and marketing costs that make launching a podcast potentially financially unviable.

With so many podcasts already out there, it’s more difficult for new ones to find listeners and gain their support. At the same time, as fewer new podcasts are launched, the market becomes less crowded.