A few years ago, a famous creator asked me if I’d ever learned anything from my audience, as he hadn’t. My response?
“Oh, God, yes! More than I can possibly begin to explain.”
That’s the whole reason I have comments on this blog, plus clear rules. If you cultivate the right community, the learnings are endless. Hard-to-find experts, rare books, cutting-edge science, hidden gems in foreign cities… you name it. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
If it weren’t for you, I also wouldn’t have discovered some of my best investments and favorite people, including Shopify (CEO and co-founder Tobi Lütke; President Harley Finkelstein), Duolingo (CEO and co-founder Luis von Ahn), and many more.
When I’ve asked you for the best board games, backpacks, pens, 3D artists, and more over the last 15+ years, you’ve always delivered.
Last but not least, you’ve showed up like champions for many important causes, raising tens of millions of dollars for mental health therapeutics, protection of indigenous land rights, clinical trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD, funding of public classrooms in the US, and more.
From the bottom of my heart — thank you, thank you, thank you.
In this post, I’ll share a recent audience survey, which was sent to subscribers of my newsletter, 5-Bullet Friday. Nearly 8,000 people replied. I promised I would share the results, and here they are.
Below are a few summaries, and some charts follow. You are an amazing group:
- On average, you are very well-educated. Approximately 45% have a Master’s degree or higher degree.
- Nearly 50% of the audience has a combined household income of $150,000 or more. 33.5% earn more than $200K/year. 14.3% earn $150K–$199K per year.
- You trust recommendations on the show. 77% of you have bought at least one product or service recommended on the podcast. 55.6% have bought more than once. If curious, a full list of recent sponsors can be found here.
- You have been listening for many years. ~76% identify as listeners for at least 4–9 years.
- You tune in to the show frequently. Close to half (42.2%) listen to the podcast on a weekly basis.
- The gender split appears to be roughly 80/20 for male/female, but it’s platform-dependent. (74/23 on Spotify for Podcasters with additional 2% as unspecified and 1% as non-binary; roughly 70/30 on YouTube, based on watch time; roughly 65/35 on Facebook.)
- The most common age bracket is 35–44 (~1/3 of the audience, according to Spotify for Podcasters; the audience skews younger on YouTube.)
- Based on my podcast host ART19, the top 10 countries in descending order are:
- United States
- Canada
- Australia
- United Kingdom
- Germany
- China
- India
- New Zealand
- Netherlands
- France
- The top 10 cities/areas in the US in descending order are:
- New York, NY
- Los Angeles, CA
- San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA
- Chicago, IL
- Denver, CO
- Washington, DC
- Seattle-Tacoma, WA
- Boston, MA-Manchester, NH
- Philadelphia, PA
- Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX
1. Education level.
2. Household income.
3. Have you ever bought a product or service after hearing about it on the podcast?
4. How long have you been listening to the podcast?
5. How often do you listen to the podcast?
6. Demographics from Spotify listeners (nearly 1M followers):
7. Demographics from my YouTube channel (~1.44M followers, data based on last 365 days of views and watch time):
8. Demographics from my Facebook page:
My sincerest thanks to everyone who answered the survey! I’ll have some exciting announcements soon.
You can subscribe to The Tim Ferriss Show podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your audio fun.
To join 1.5M+ people who enjoy my 5-Bullet Friday newsletter every Friday, click here. Each week, you’ll get a short and sweet email linking to the most fascinating five things that I’ve found. Since my 700+ podcast guests often send me things, it’s a great way to get a sneak preview of edgy things that will be mainstream in a few years.
All the best,
Tim
P.S. Need a bite of dessert before you leave? I shan’t deny you. Here you go: Leekspin.
The Tim Ferriss Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than one billion downloads. It has been selected for "Best of Apple Podcasts" three times, it is often the #1 interview podcast across all of Apple Podcasts, and it's been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many occasions. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.
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Those are super interesting to know, as a listeners. Thank you for sharing! I wish more people would share those publicly.
I also imagine that sponsors will be even more interested in it. Great marketing piece, as always you are on the cutting-edge of the playbooks
Hey Tim. I’ve been a huge fan since the 4 hour work week. As much as you’ve learned from your audience, I’ve learned from you (and I guess by extension, your audience!). You’ve cultivated a true and genuine community here on the Internet, and that’s such a rare and valuable thing these days. Excited for what the future brings.
Keep it up. And thank YOU again.
-Pete
This made me realize that I’m one of the least unique listeners you have 🙂
Hi Tim,
I hope you are doing well and enjoying your life. I was reading your 4 Hour body book which is an amazing source to live a healthy lifestyle.
I have question, as you mentioned about the slow carb diet which is basically the prime source of protein is Meat. How can we replace that meat into any other veg source?
I know you are busy with you daily life thing but according to me you are only one who can answer this question.
Thanks you so much for this book!
Too bad I missed the survey, I am outside your average listener and would want to have contributed: female and Brazilian. Just wanted to give a shoutout on behalf of your Latino listeners
I am a 60-year old woman and I listen weekly.
I remember listening in 2014 and being mind blown and so inspired, 10 years after and having even met you once in person, your “show” has become the best way I have of keeping my journey into adulthood real, honest and full of compassion. I am sure that part of those statistics are no coincidence, you have made us that way!
Love that last link! Thanks Tim.
Wondering what your thought are about the fact that only 20% of the listeners identify as female.
Thanks for blogging!
Great to see those results, Tim. I am in the older age band, not quite 150 yet, but still get a massive amount from the show. Proof if there ever was that you’re never too old to learn.
Thanks for the information from the survey. I found myself rolling my eyes about the gender split! Honestly, I just want people to be cool, and don’t care at all about gender or orientation. I bet I would just totally click with every one of your followers/fan base/peeps. Time for a conference!! My number one reason for my loyalty to you, Tim, is you are ridiculously fun, intellectually creative and you encourage me to take appropriate risks in truly living my life. Such good stuff! Keep it coming!
Could you explain how you developped this community, since you described yourself an more of an introvert?
Thank you for sharing, this is so cool!
Ah wish I’d spotted the survey! I’ve been listening since the first episode, have all your books and wish I could thank you in person for the gift you keep giving. Thanks Tim.
Hi Tim, female Bay area professional late 30’s here. Used to be a huge fan, and still love the idea of what you do. Bought your first two books, etc. Over the years, I found it increasingly hard to get on board with your choice to highlight predominantly male guests, so I listen less. If there was more balanced representation, I’d listen more. If you find there aren’t enough qualified women to highlight, you could probably throw your weight in that direction too, right to the pipeline issue. (Still get your 5-Bullet Friday though, I like the media recs). Hope that’s helpful.
Now THAT’s intriguing! Talk about a loyal crowd redefining those 1,000 true fans. Really happy to see that the podcast’s message cuts through the noise. A decade of dedication pays off. This audience rocks!
ありがとうテｲﾂム先生。Your podcast got me out of the cubicle and back into the cockpit. Can’t thank you enough, brother!
Cheers,
Sajak
Hey Tim! Love your show so much! I’m a small business owner and get SO much energy from your amazing guests and the on point interview questions you have. I’m not sure how you manage to produce the quantity of such high quality material you do, but it’s honestly one of the things I look most forward to each week. Thanks for everything you do!
50 year old female dvm 😊
The fact that I found Dr. Peter Attia from your interview with him is worth its weight in Platinum. Thank you so much.
Interesting.
I’m a little disappointed about the male/ female rate, big gap!
Thank you for sharing the results.
Sara from Peru.
That last link at first had me convinced someone had invented a dessert made of leeks.
Anything actionable? What action does this imply on your part? (besides charging more for ad slots!) 🙂 How do you expand your reach? Or do you need to?
Thank you for some very insightful conversations on many a long run or ride over the years.
Love all your insight, books, podcast, 5 bullet Friday and share many of your thoughts in my yoga classes and can’t wait for your next book. Thank you for your creativity! 57 yrs old female French
Super interesting! I can say I fit into the majority on almost all categories except for female. I find the topics on the show some of the most interesting so the lack of female audience and females in this space in general has perplexed me
My family refers to you as “the boyfriend”…. as I’ve been “involved” with the show for many years and endlessly quote interesting things I’ve learnt… I am outside your average demographic, a 56 year old ex South African woman living in Australia.
Thank you.
I think I’m a bit content to not be part of the majority slice in any of the categories. I do, however, feel younger, wiser, and a bit richer, listening to your show every week. Please continue doing what you are doing, and know that there are probably many that didn’t answer (I’m one of those) that eat your content like a chocolate chip cookie. Always enjoyable, always want more, but the discipline is in the waiting for the next cookie to manifest.
Hi, Tim,
I am an outlier. I have been listening, though mostly reading your 5 Bullet Fridays since I read that very first article about you in Wired. I am a 71-year-old female educator (25 years at the university level) and a former business owner with a master’s degree in design. I currently am the director of and teach digital design, entrepreneurship, and technology at an innovative public charter high school built for foster and first-generation youth in Santa Ana, CA. The big AI & Tech companies talk about equity but I do not see it happening in the educational sphere. Figma—big shout-out to FIGMA, is the only company offering its services FREE for education. We need to be training the next generation, but schools and many students in the US today do not have the means to afford multiple $ 20-a-month subscriptions. Podcast, perhaps??? Thank you so much for all you do, as you have contributed to many a class over the years. Sincerely, Patricia
Sad I missed the survey email. Love the bullet and saving them eats up my Gmail 🙃. Have been following you since about 4 hr body. Love how science changes and updates opinions. Also follow rhonda patrick and appreciate you guys doing the legwork for me !! Much easier to keep my family apprised of latest studies and thought changes. Thanks so much for your work!
I wonder if you did a per-capita breakdown of listenership where NZ would end up in the rankings… Only 5m New Zealanders but still only one below India.
The gender split metric is the most (or only) surprising one. I’ve been listening to practically every single episode for years now, and wouldn’t have expected 80% of listeners to be men, based on the content. I wonder if that can be attributed to the split of male-female guests, or it’s topic-dependent. And if it’s topic-dependent, why would fewer women be interested in self development per se?
Where are all the women at?!
Thanks for sharing!! So many gems found through you 🙂
Am a big fan for more than 5yrs from the tropical country of the Philippines 🙂 Cool intellectually inspiring stuff, Tim!
How is the Tim Ferriss Show adapting to the changing media landscape and podcasting trends?
I can’t believe I missed the survey!!! I’m a huge fan of the podcast especially the Random episodes with Kevin Rose. I’m female and listen from Nigeria!!