4 Untapped Podcast Audiences To Grow Your Show

As an industry, we’re kind of obsessed with measuring podcast listener growth.

Almost every day, a new growth statistic lands in my inbox. A quick Google will also throw up a crazy amount of studies and reports saying how podcasts are becoming more popular amongst particular markets and demographics.

But how much do we actually do with this listener data? There’s a whole lot of “hmmm, that’s interesting!” and carrying on as usual.

These studies put big growth opportunities on the table that creators don’t always capitalise on – and that’s untapped audiences.

When we talk about ‘untapped podcast audiences’, we likely mean one of two things:

• A demographic that’s showing a lot of growth but hasn’t been capitalised on yet
• An audience where growth is stunted, but the audience has a lot of potential.

Either way, recognising these listener trends is how you identify opportunities to reach new audiences and grow your show.

So let’s dig into some largely untapped podcast listener audiences that are worth thinking about – and how you might reach them.

1. Kids

A report by Edison Research suggests as much as 49% of 6-12-year-olds in the US listen to podcasts. Of those kids who listen to podcasts, nearly half listen every single day.

Engaging listeners early benefits the entire podcasting industry. When kids grow up with podcasts as part of their world, listening becomes a habit, not a discovery. Nurture young audiences now, and you’re helping create lifelong listeners.

68% of parents in the same Edison study said they listen to podcasts along with their children. In this sense, creating a podcast that appeals to children means you’re likely to get double the engagement. If a kid likes your podcast, their parents will, too.

And there’s big potential to monetise this genre too. In a study by Morning Consult, 9 in 10 parents with children who consume podcasts said they’re willing to pay for a subscription to a children’s podcast. This is substantially higher than the average 21% of listeners.

We’ll likely see the industry giving a lot more attention to kids’ podcasts in the near future, as studies are revealing a multitude of benefits. Podcasts have been reported to improve grades and enhance positivity and self-esteem among young people.

A Clinical Psychologist involved in the above study said:

“The link between audio content and enhanced positivity, self-esteem, and academic performance is a call to action. It’s time we create content that nurtures, educates, and empowers our children.”

Kristin J. Carothers, Ph.D.

How to appeal more to this audience

While creating a podcast for children could be fun to try, you don’t necessarily have to create a kids’ podcast to appeal to kids.

We know that parents have a big impact on the podcast content their children listen to. Creating interesting, informative and funny content that’s child-friendly but not targeted specifically at kids could be the sweet spot you’re looking for.

So consider if there’s any way you could make your content more accessible and appealing to children under 12. For example, think about keeping your episodes short (under 20 mins). Using a clear but conversational tone and adopting storytelling techniques will help to keep young listeners (and their parents) engaged.

When it comes to promotion and discoverability, publishing your podcast on YouTube will help you engage with young audiences. One study by UTA found 82% of child listeners consume podcasts on YouTube.

It’s also worth working on your social media presence and considering social ads. 58% of parents reported getting their podcast recommendations for their kids from social media.

2. Gen Z 

Your Gen Z listeners are those born between 1997 and 2012. So right now, they’re aged between 13 and 28.

Gen Z is worth paying close attention to for a whole number of reasons. In fact, we have an entire article on why you need to care more about your Gen Z listeners.

But in a nutshell: Podcast listenership amongst Gen Z is constantly growing, they’re more engaged than any other demographic, and they’re super receptive to podcast advertising. This makes this demographic gold dust for advertisers and for your podcast, too.

One study by eMarketer projects that Gen Z podcast adoption is accelerating faster than all other generations. The report estimates that Gen Z podcast adoption will reach 69% by 2028, overtaking millennials.

How to appeal more to a Gen Z audience

Again, you don’t want to completely change up your podcast just to satisfy Gen Z. It’s important to keep making the show you want to make.

But there’s also no harm in thinking about how you can make some changes to your podcast that might draw more Gen Z listeners in.

For example, some studies have suggested Gen Z engage most with shows where podcast hosts are facilitators rather than the single focus of attention. They’re interested in hearing true-life stories from the people who have experienced them.

Do you tend to run your podcast exclusively as a solo show? Maybe it could it be worth experimenting with guest interviews for the odd episode to see how that lands with listeners.

A Gen Z study by Spotify also found that 39% of Gen Z listeners prefer to listen to podcasts at an accelerated playback speed. This would suggest that this younger demographic, who are deeply immersed in a micro-content world, won’t be so tempted by your marathon 3+ hour tangent episodes.

How you promote your podcast will have a huge impact on whether your podcast reaches a Gen Z audience, too.

While you might turn to friends or podcast charts when looking to discover new podcasts, Gen Z rely heavily on social media for this. A recent study by Edison revealed that short video clips on social media are the #1 way this generation finds new podcasts to listen to. 80% specifically said they use TikTok for podcast discovery.

The same study found that 71% of Gen Z discover new shows organically on YouTube through the ‘watch next’ algorithm. But let’s be clear about something: Leveraging YouTube to reach Gen Z doesn’t mean you have to completely change your podcasting workflow to incorporate video.

You can still publish your podcast on YouTube as audio with a static image in place of a video component. This is how 61% of the independent podcasters we polled are using YouTube to share their show.

3. Boomers

There’s been a fair amount of chatter about the untapped potential of “Boomer” podcast listeners in recent years. 

“Boomer” is a term generally used to refer to the post-war “baby boomer” generation. This demographic is aged roughly 60+ (or specifically 61-79 right now in 2025).

A study released in April 2023 by Edison Research and NPR found that podcasting has a largely untapped audience in the Boomer demographic. Similarly, Sounds Profitable refers to this demographic (but more specifically, females of 55+) as “The Persuadables”. The potential is there for serious growth, they say. We just need to grab the bull by the horns.

As a generation that’s only been exposed to listening technology as adults, they’re generally less familiar with podcasting. As a result, they listen to podcasts far less than other age brackets.

But the interesting thing is that 91% of Boomers own a smartphone. They have the tools, the time and the interest to listen (talk radio is hugely popular amongst Boomers). We just need to make it easier for them to access our content. Technology has moved too fast for many people of this generation, and they’re not motivated enough to “get into” a whole new medium.

A study published this year suggests that adoption numbers are finally growing with Boomer listenership. It found that 27% of Americans aged 55+ have now watched or listened to a podcast in the past week, continuing an upward trend from 19% in 2024 and 14% in both 2023 and 2022.

Here are some ideas on how you can make your podcast more discoverable for the Boomer generation.

How to appeal more to a Boomer audience

Engaging Boomers isn’t necessarily about creating podcasts on topics that will appeal more to them. There’s already so much great content out there that this demographic would love – it’s more about closing the technical gap to make listening to podcasts easier and more accessible to them. They just need to be persuaded that podcasts are a medium worth getting into.

But how do you persuade a generation of FM radio listeners that podcasting is just as good (if not better) option for them?

By making your content available in places where Boomers will find it and making it as easy as possible to access.

For example, you might want to promote your show on platforms like Facebook, which is the most popular among this demographic. Share individual episodes as posts that they can listen to easily just by clicking. Any links that divert them to a listening platform they don’t know are likely to result in a drop-off.

We also know that Boomers make up around 18% of YouTube users, suggesting this is a platform they’re comfortable using. Making your podcast available on YouTube (again, I mean as audio with a static image, not creating a whole video component just to leverage YouTube) could help you reach more Boomers with your content.

Tapping into the Boomer demographic is really about converting non-listeners into listeners, which is something we as an industry need to care more about.

Here are some tactics on how to turn non-listeners into podcast lovers that will help you generate new Boomer listeners for your own show and play your part in converting new listeners for the industry more broadly.

4. Non-English Speakers

A study published by Rephonic last year showed that English and Indonesian language podcasts are way overrepresented.

In languages like English or Indonesian, there are far more podcasts than there are native listeners, which makes it much harder to stand out.

On the other hand, languages such as Japanese, Russian, and Korean are significantly underrepresented in the podcasting world. This creates a major opportunity for podcasters to reach large audiences who are interested in spoken-word content but have limited access to it in their native language.

How to appeal to more non-English audiences

Don’t worry, I’m not about to suggest you start learning Russian so you can grow your audience over there!

If there’s one way AI has the potential to really boost the podcasting industry, it’s in allowing our shows to break into any international market, regardless of which language they speak. This was cited as one of the podcasting industry’s biggest opportunities for 2025.

There’s already a fair amount of podcasting technology out there that can dub your podcast into multiple languages for you.

And the spooky part? As the technology uses voice cloning, this means your podcast will still be available in your original voice. Ever wondered what you’d sound like if you spoke Mandarin? Now’s the time to find out!

Opportunities for Growth

There are a lot of people out there who don’t listen to your podcast. Some might see that as a negative; others see it as an opportunity.

If you have an idea for a new podcast that appeals to one of these untapped audiences, our free AI-powered Showplanner tool will help you come up with a name, trailer and entire launch plan in minutes.  

But, remember, you don’t need to come up with an entirely new podcast to reach new people. Sometimes, a few tweaks and a little creativity can help get your show in front of those who never knew it (or podcasting more generally!) even existed.