Listen and Read: The Battle for Attention: A New Report About Key Audience Behaviour in the Age of eBooks, Audiobooks and Podcasts

• Published in: Publishing research quarterly Vol. 38; no. 1; pp. 40 - 52
• Main Authors: Döring, Ute, Müller, Barbara, Rohr, Svenja, Ruhrmann, John, Schäfer, Melissa
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.03.2022; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Attention; Audiences; Audiobooks; Digital radio; E-books; Library Science; Methodology of the Social Sciences; Podcasts; Polls & surveys; Printing and Publishing; Publishing industry; Social Sciences; Podcast; Ebook; Digital publishing; Publishing industry; Audiobook
• ISSN: 1053-8801; 1936-4792
• DOI: 10.1007/s12109-021-09853-2

The media landscape, including book publishing, is undergoing rapid development and profound change due to the digitization of content, and its respective sales and marketing channels. It is now possible to consume all kinds of narrative content (from fictional to informative) in more and more formats, which enables it to keep reaching new target groups. We wanted to know how eBooks, digital audiobooks and podcasts fit into the “battle for attention”. To find out, we surveyed 2335 people aged between 16 and 65 years, across Germany, about their media use during the past six months, and also asked 1000 users of eBooks, digital audiobooks or podcasts more detailed questions about their usage behaviour. We conducted the surveys during August and September 2020, in association with GIM Gesellschaft für Innovative Marktforschung mbH. The surveys yielded twelve highly topical and illuminating insights that we will present in the following report.