Los Angeles podcast statistics at a glance
Los Angeles is one of the clearest places to study how podcasts, local audio, and audience-scale publishing overlap. The numbers below show a market where LAist is not just a newsroom, but a multi-channel audio and digital platform with reach across podcasts, radio, web, and live events.
Fast facts
- LAist Studios averaged 1,000,000 monthly downloads (LAist audience page).
- LAist Studios podcasts averaged 800,000 downloads per month through 2024 (LAist Maynard case study).
- LAist 89.3 had more than 600,000 weekly cume listeners (LAist audience page).
- LAist.com averaged 1.2 million monthly page views (LAist audience page).
- LAist’s monthly active users exceeded 5 million (LAist 2025 Impact Report).
- Los Angeles County population was 9,694,934 on July 1, 2025 (U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts).
Table of contents
- What the LAist numbers say about Los Angeles podcast reach
- Podcast audience scale and listening habits
- LAist Studios by the numbers
- Radio, web, and audience overlap
- What the demographic signals suggest
- A compact comparison of the key figures
- Why the Los Angeles market matters
What the LAist numbers say about Los Angeles podcast reach
Los Angeles podcast statistics are easiest to read when they are viewed as part of a larger audience system. In this dataset, LAist appears across podcasts, radio, site traffic, social reach, membership, and event-driven engagement, which makes it a useful proxy for how audio brands can operate in a dense metro audience.
The most obvious headline is scale. LAist Studios averaged 1,000,000 monthly downloads (LAist audience page), while LAist Studios podcasts averaged 800,000 downloads per month through 2024 (LAist Maynard case study). Those two figures point to a consistent podcast operation with meaningful monthly demand, and the difference between them is itself a useful reminder that different reporting periods and measurement frames can produce different audience totals.
The radio side is also significant. LAist 89.3 had more than 600,000 weekly cume listeners (LAist audience page), which puts the broadcast presence in a very different scale category from the podcast audience alone. When combined with LAist’s 1.5 million livestream sessions per month (LAist 2025 Impact Report), the picture becomes a broad local audio network rather than a single show or a narrow podcast feed.
Podcast audience scale and listening habits
The wider podcast market helps contextualize Los Angeles podcast statistics. Edison Research Infinite Dial 2024 estimated that the U.S. podcast audience reached 47% of the 12+ population in the last month and 34% of the 12+ population in the last week. Those numbers matter because they show that podcasting is already a mainstream habit, not an experimental medium, and a local market like Los Angeles sits inside that national baseline.
Women age 12+ reached 45% monthly podcast listening and 32% weekly podcast listening (Edison Research Infinite Dial 2024). Online audio listening reached 76% of the U.S. 12+ population, and Edison estimated 218 million U.S. age 12+ online audio listeners (Edison Research Infinite Dial 2024). That means podcast distribution in Los Angeles is operating inside a much broader audio environment where on-demand listening and online audio are already deeply normalized.
Smart device ownership also helps explain why audio travel well across routines. Smart speaker ownership was 34% of the U.S. 12+ population, and 43% of smart speaker owners owned three or more devices (Edison Research Infinite Dial 2024). For Los Angeles audio publishers, this suggests a listener base that may move between phone, home speaker, car, and desktop rather than staying confined to one device.
Car listening is still especially relevant. Among U.S. adults who drove or rode in a car in the last month, 70% listened to radio in their primary car, 55% listened to online audio in their primary car, and 32% listened to podcasts in their primary car (Edison Research Infinite Dial 2024). That hierarchy is important for interpreting LAist’s radio and podcast mix: local audio brands compete for attention not just in feeds, but during commute time and other in-car routines.
LAist Studios by the numbers
LAist Studios is one of the clearest examples in this dataset of how a local publisher can build a podcast brand with ongoing reach. The audience page says LAist Studios averaged 1,000,000 monthly downloads, while the Maynard case study says LAist Studios podcasts averaged 800,000 downloads per month through 2024 (LAist audience page; LAist Maynard case study). The numbers are close enough to show substantial monthly volume, but the separate reporting lines suggest that the brand tracked the business from multiple angles.
The same case study says LAist Studios was created in 2018 and produces The LA Report, How To LA, Inheriting, Imperfect Paradise, and Passing the Mantle (LAist Maynard case study). That lineup matters because it shows a portfolio model rather than a single flagship show. In practical terms, that kind of portfolio can support audience diversity, topic diversity, and revenue resilience.
The most prominent title in the set is The LA Report. It reached 2.5 million downloads and is LAist’s top podcast (LAist Maynard case study). That gives the brand a clear anchor point inside the broader podcast slate. The same case study also says The Big Burn generated 140,000 new downloads (LAist Maynard case study), which shows that individual series can still create meaningful growth even within a larger network.
A compact way to read these podcast numbers is to separate baseline scale from breakout effects. The baseline is the monthly average around 800,000 to 1,000,000 downloads (LAist Maynard case study; LAist audience page). The breakout effect is the ability of a specific program, like The LA Report, to accumulate 2.5 million downloads or generate 140,000 new downloads for another title (LAist Maynard case study). That combination is exactly what makes a local podcast network valuable: steady audience flow plus selective spikes.
Radio, web, and audience overlap
The LAist audience page makes clear that podcasting sits inside a larger owned-and-operated ecosystem. LAist.com averaged 1.2 million monthly page views, and LAist.com/radio averaged 465,000 monthly page views (LAist audience page). Those figures show that the web is not merely a support channel; it is a major audience surface on its own.
The audience profile for LAist.com skewed P25-44, skewed female, and had a median household income of $90,840 (LAist audience page). By contrast, LAist.com/radio skewed P25-64, had a median age of 41, skewed male, and had a median household income of $139,000 (LAist audience page). Those differences are useful because they show how one brand can attract distinct audience segments depending on the content surface.
Membership and livestream metrics give another view of engagement depth. LAist 89.3 had 75,000 members and generated 1.5 million livestream sessions per month (LAist audience page). Those are not passive reach metrics. They point to habitual usage, live listening, and an audience willing to support or repeatedly return to the brand.
The 2025 Impact Report adds another layer. LAist’s daily active users exceeded 690,000 on January 9, 2025, compared with a normal daily active user average of 50,000 (LAist 2025 Impact Report). LAist’s monthly active users exceeded 5 million, and LAist.com became a habit for 1.8 million Southern Californians each month (LAist 2025 Impact Report). That is a useful reminder that a local media brand can have very large total digital reach even while its core audio products keep a strong identity.
The same report says LAist’s daily active users were up more than 70% versus the prior year, audience loyalty increased 105%, overall web traffic increased 74%, and digital revenue grew 39% to nearly $1 million (LAist 2025 Impact Report). Together, those metrics suggest that audience growth and monetization were moving in the same direction.
What the demographic signals suggest
The demographic details in the audience page are unusually informative because they show how an audio brand fits into household and income layers. LAist Studios’ podcast audience skewed P25-64 with a median age of 34 (LAist audience page). That is a wide age band with a relatively young center of gravity. It suggests that the podcast audience is broad enough to cross generations but still centered on adult listeners in working and family stages of life.
LAist.com/radio skewed P25-64 with a median age of 41 and skewed male (LAist audience page). That is meaningfully older than the podcast audience median age of 34 and gives the radio product a somewhat different audience composition. The contrast is useful because it shows that the same brand can occupy multiple listener identities.
Income data also stands out. LAist.com median household income was $90,840, while LAist.com/radio median household income was $139,000 (LAist audience page). Meanwhile, LAist 89.3 audience skewed toward college graduates with $100,000+ incomes (LAist audience page). That collection of figures points to a brand whose audience has strong purchasing power, especially in the radio and donor-oriented contexts.
The membership figures reinforce that interpretation. LAist 89.3 had 75,000 members, LAist radio had 70,000 members in the 2020 donor segmentation example, and LAist digital had 8,000 members in the 2020 donor segmentation example (LAist audience page; LAist Maynard case study). Although those numbers come from different contexts, they show how the membership base can differ across platform type and segmentation model.
A compact comparison of the key figures
| Metric | Figure | Source label |
|---|---|---|
| LAist Studios monthly downloads | 1,000,000 | LAist audience page |
| LAist Studios podcasts monthly downloads through 2024 | 800,000 | LAist Maynard case study |
| LAist 89.3 weekly cume listeners | more than 600,000 | LAist audience page |
| LAist.com monthly page views | 1.2 million | LAist audience page |
| LAist.com/radio monthly page views | 465,000 | LAist audience page |
| LAist 89.3 livestream sessions per month | 1.5 million | LAist audience page |
| LAist monthly active users | more than 5 million | LAist 2025 Impact Report |
| LAist.com habit audience in Southern California | 1.8 million monthly | LAist 2025 Impact Report |
| Los Angeles County population, July 1, 2025 | 9,694,934 | U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts |
That table shows why LAist is such a strong reference point for Los Angeles podcast statistics. The podcast figure is large on its own, but the radio, web, livestream, and local habit metrics show a broader ecosystem around it. The population figure helps anchor the market size, with Los Angeles County at 9,694,934 on July 1, 2025 (U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts).
A second way to read the comparison is to look at how scale shifts across channels. Monthly downloads at 1,000,000 (LAist audience page) sit alongside 1.2 million monthly page views (LAist audience page), 1.5 million livestream sessions per month (LAist audience page), and more than 5 million monthly active users (LAist 2025 Impact Report). That is a layered audience picture, not a single-channel story.
Why the Los Angeles market matters
Los Angeles County population was 9,757,179 on July 1, 2024 and 9,694,934 on July 1, 2025 (U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts). Even with the slight year-over-year decline in this two-point series, the county remains one of the largest local markets in the United States, which helps explain why Los Angeles podcast statistics can support large audience totals.
The local market also rewards brands that can serve multiple listening modes. The data here show podcast downloads, weekly radio cume, livestream sessions, web traffic, active users, and membership all moving through the same brand family (LAist audience page; LAist 2025 Impact Report). For a city as large and behaviorally diverse as Los Angeles, that spread matters because listeners do not all arrive the same way.
The cleanest takeaway is that Los Angeles podcast statistics are best understood as ecosystem statistics. The numbers around LAist show what happens when a podcast operation sits inside a broad local media platform with radio, web, and membership attached to it. The result is audience depth, platform diversity, and enough scale to make the market a meaningful benchmark for local audio publishers.