Lis­ten up phar­ma: Au­dio con­tent from stream­ing mu­sic to pod­casts is on the rise — and so are ad op­por­tu­ni­ties

To­day’s au­dio chan­nels are not your grand­ma’s ra­dio. From dig­i­tal stream­ing au­dio to orig­i­nal pod­casts, more ears than ever are tuned in­to a grow­ing wave of au­dio con­tent. Phar­ma mar­keters are tak­ing an­oth­er look at ad­ver­tis­ing op­tions on au­dio — which is now boom­ing, thanks in part to the pan­dem­ic and more peo­ple stay­ing at home.

More than 220 mil­lion peo­ple in the US stream mu­sic every month, while 116 mil­lion lis­tened to at least one pod­cast in the last month, ac­cord­ing to stats com­piled by SXM Me­dia and Pan­do­ra. And it’s grow­ing. Dig­i­tal au­dio stream­ing in­creased 16.4% in the first six months this year when com­pared to the same time pe­ri­od in 2020.

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