Who Listens to Freakonomics Radio? Here Are the Survey Results

Last week we posted a survey for Freakonomics Radio listeners. Your response was fantastic — nearly 2,000 listeners — and very helpful. In return, we thought it’d be nice to share some of the data with you. As a big believer in negative feedback, I have just one regret: that we didn’t ask you to tell us what you don’t like about the podcast. Maybe next time.

WHO YOU ARE: 

Our listeners are, in a nutshell: rather male (77%); relatively young (45% are 25-35 years old, another 24% are 35-44); well-educated (38% have a graduate degree; another 43% have a bachelor’s degree); and — according to the survey data at least — pretty well-off (17% earn more than $150,000 and another 23% earn between $100,000 and $150,000; then there are the 14% who earn between $0 and $30,000, most of whom are likely students).

WHAT YOU DO:

Here is a look at top occupations:

WHERE YOU ARE:

Here is where Freakonomics Radio listeners live — lots of international (yay!) but not a single survey response from Wyoming. What’s up with that, Wyoming!?

ABOUT THE SHOW:

One thing we really wanted to know is how you feel about our “full-length” podcasts (usually 20 or 30 minutes long) versus the shorter pieces that come from our Marketplace appearances. It turns out that 56% of you prefer the longer pieces but another 35% like them both equally — while 4% prefer the shorter pieces and another 4% “hadn’t noticed” the difference.

As for consumption: 60% of you listen every week with another 23% listening at least twice a month. The most surprising — and gratifying! — result came in response to this question: “How much of each podcast do you usually listen to?” 91% of the respondents said they listen to 100% of each podcast, with another 7% listening to 75%. Granted, the sample here is plainly skewed toward people who like the podcast but I still wouldn’t have expected this result. 

I can’t say I was too surprised to see the other podcasts that Freakonomics Radio listeners follow:

I was, however, a bit surprised to learn that only 18% of you are members of a public-radio station. I guess this means that, although Freakonomics Radio is co-produced by public-radio titans WNYC and American Public Media, some quadrants of the podcast universe in fact operate in a separate orbit.

Finally, here’s a look at what you said were your favorite episodes. Thanks again to everyone for participating!