Podcasts are a growing part of the digital audio landscape in Canada, and the most recent MTM Jr. report shows it’s not just adults driving their popularity.

Podcast penetration amongst kids age two to 17 in Canada has remained steady over the past four years, though it skews higher for Anglophone kids since there is a greater variety of content in English.

While not as popular as streaming music services and AM/FM radio, podcasts make up a sizeable piece of the youth audio market, with 12% regularly listening, compared to 64% for streaming music and 48% for terrestrial radio. Podcasts are most popular among teens, with 17% reporting listening to podcast content.

Kids aged two to 17 who listen to podcasts also listen to other forms of audio: podcast listeners are 50% more likely to listen to radio and streaming music services than are those who don’t. This creates opportunities to promote podcasts via these other audio media.

Kids who listen to podcasts tend to do so frequently. More than two-thirds (68%) of podcast listeners aged two to 17 say they listen to at least one per week, with one in 10 listening daily or almost daily. Younger kids are more likely to listen to podcasts daily than are older listeners: two-to-11 year-olds are more than twice as likely to be listening to podcasts daily than are teens. This could indicate that they are listening with their parents. The gap decreases when looking at weekly listening and disappears when looking at those who listen monthly.

Young people who engage in social networking are nearly three times as likely to listen to podcasts as those who don’t. Kids that have their own smartphones, are from more affluent homes and kids with more educated parents are also more likely to be listening to podcast content.