Edison Research Infinite Dial

The Infinite Dial is the slide deck that every podcast pitch eventually borrows a chart from. Edison Research has run the annual study on US audio consumption for over two decades now, and the longitudinal trend lines, weekly listening growth, share of ear, demographic splits, the rise and plateau of various platforms, are the closest thing the industry has to an agreed-upon source of truth for how Americans actually consume audio over time.

When somebody on a sponsor call asks how big podcasting really is or how it compares to streaming music, the answer almost always comes from Infinite Dial data even if the speaker doesn't credit it explicitly. The data is free to access, which is part of why it remains so embedded across every advertising pitch deck, agency analysis, conference keynote, and tier-one publisher annual report.

The recent inclusion of video podcast consumption metrics has been particularly useful as that side of the industry has grown faster than the audio-only side. The honest limits are easy to state upfront.

It's a single yearly release rather than a continuously updated dashboard, so the data ages over the course of the year. The headline data is US-only, although Edison does publish international studies that are separate releases for specific markets like the UK, Canada, and Australia.

Any company that wants tailored research on their specific audience or a specific market not covered by the public studies pays Edison real money for custom work. For trend context and pitch ammunition, it's free and effectively indispensable in the way that few other industry tools are.