Is podcasting only for the young?

By Matthew Lasar | Published: August 31, 2008 - 08:25PM CT

Podcasting continues to grow at a rate that’s faster than a snail’s pace, but not by much. The Pew Internet and American Life project reports that almost one in five Internet users (19 percent) say they have saved a podcast for later listening. That’s up from 12 percent in Pew’s August 2006 survey.

But the latest study also concedes that “podcasting has yet to become a fixture in the everyday lives of Internet users, as very few Internet users download podcasts on a typical day.” Just 3 percent do so, in fact. And there’s a real generational divide here of which media trend watchers should take heed. After 30, podcasting download rates take a dip; after 50, they take a serious dive; after 65, forget it.