Women underrepresented in popular podcasts
66.3% of hosts in top podcasts are men and 33.2% are women. When compared to other media — 50% of the top 100 films in 2024 had a female lead/co lead, 44.9% of series regulars of the top 100 TV series were female, and 37.7% of popular music artists were female in 2024, a just released US study by Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism in Los Angeles shows. Women were most likely to host podcasts about true crime (53%); arts, society, and culture (43.3%), news (41.2%), and education (40%).
Podcast listening has increased substantially over time. According to The Infinite Dial, 8% of Americans aged 12 and older listened to a podcast per week in 2014. By 2023, the percentage was 31%.1 In 2014, Americans spent 5.6 minutes per day listening and in 2023, 25.5 minutes.
Women were least likely to host programs focused on business and technology (7.7%) and sports and fitness (18.9%).
The study also examined the race/ethnicity of hosts. 79.2% were white and 20.8% were from an underrepresented racial/ethnic group.
“Similar to the findings on gender, podcasts trailed other parts of the entertainment industry. Across the most popular TV series of 2024, 44.9% of series regulars were from an underrepresented racial/ethnic group, as were 44.6% of popular music artists and 24.6% of film leads/co leads in 2024”, the Annenberg School says.
Women of colour were least likely to host podcasts: 8.1% of the 592 popular podcasts examined.
“Podcasts fall behind other forms of entertainment, as 12.7% of leads/co leads, 22.6% of series regulars, and 15.4% of popular music artists in 2024 were women of colour.”
Nearly three-quarters of the guests appearing across available episodes of the 100 most popular podcasts were men (72.8%) and 27.2% were women. The ratio of men to women guests was 2.7 to 1.
“The disparity between men and women guests extended to episodes — nearly two-thirds (62.6%) of the more than 4,000 episodes evaluated did not feature a woman guest. A total of 37.4% of the episodes featured at least one woman as a guest.”
Women were most likely to appear as a guest when a podcast had a woman host. When a podcast had at least one woman host, 54.7% of guests were men and 45.3% were women. When a podcast had no women hosts, 82.1% of guests were men and 17.9% were women.
The report, titled Inequality in Popular Podcasts, was authored by associate professor Stacy L. Smith and the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative and is based on podcast data from Spotify and additional podcast industry reports.
Moonshot News is an independent European news website for all IT, Media and Advertising professionals, powered by women and with a focus on driving the narrative for diversity, inclusion and gender equality in the industry.
Our mission is to provide top and unbiased information for all professionals and to make sure that women get their fair share of voice in the news and in the spotlight!
We produce original content, news articles, a curated calendar of industry events and a database of women IT, Media and Advertising associations.
