Research from The Diffusion Group (TDG) shows continued but restrained growth for podcasting as the service moves from early adopters to the mass market. TDG says that customers are poorly educated on podcasting.

I wrote TDG's initial podcasting industry report and am pleased to see them continuing their work in this area.

The report is titled Podcast Usage Profiles and Demand Forecasts thru 2012. TDG estimates that 11% of adult broadband users (12 million US consumers) listen to podcasts at least monthly and projects it will grow to 24% (38.5 million Americans) in 2012.

TDG identifies two specific factors that limit growth. 1. Podcasting is still perceived as too complex for most consumers. 2. Consumers are not aware of the full range and quality of podcast programming.

Other interesting findings:
> 68% of podcast listeners use a portal media player, 48% use a PC
> Average listeners hear about 5 podcasts per month and have 4 podcast subscriptions.
> 70% use iTunes for podcast downloading