Music podcasts are among the most under-served categories in podcasting, according to new data from WhichPodcast, a discovery platform that indexes tens of thousands of shows across services.
The company examined supply and demand across 19 podcast genres. Music podcasts scored 77 out of 100 on its demand index, which combines search volume on WhichPodcast, category page visits on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and the average subscriber-to-show ratio across the top 100 shows in each category.
Supply tells a different story. Music podcasts scored only 30 out of 100 for available shows, leaving a demand gap of 47. That ties with Kids & Family as the largest mismatch among the 19 genres studied.
WhichPodcast cautioned that the gap does not guarantee success for new entrants.
“A high gap score does not guarantee success in a genre. The gap exists, but filling it meaningfully is a different challenge from simply launching in the category. A genre in the opportunity zone clears the first hurdle. The second hurdle is whether you have a specific, differentiated angle that the existing shows do not cover.”
