Comedian Mark Humphries has a question. The Saturday night ABC Radio host wants to know who’s actually listening?
Not to him, but to audiobooks.
Recently, Humphries began sharing snippets from audiobooks, highlighting mistakes, gaffes and downright quirky moments that raise a simple question: who exactly signed off on this before it was released?
It’s a pertinent question given that the market for audiobooks is booming.
Recent data from Grand View Research shows the global audiobooks market is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 26.2 per cent through to 2030, with revenue jumping from around $16 billion in 2025 to $51 billion.
It’s a surge driven by smartphones, always-on listening, and increasingly, smart speakers nudging audio deeper into daily life.
But as the category scales, so too does the scrutiny, and in Humphries’ case, the comedy.
From memoirs to mild obsession
Humphries didn’t arrive at audiobooks via algorithm or trend report. He arrived via a very practical realisation.
“As an adult, I just haven’t really gotten into fiction, but what I do love is nonfiction, specifically memoir. And once I realised you can actually listen to the author read their own memoir, I thought, well, that sounds perfect.”
That “perfect” quickly became something of a low-key obsession, with Humphries’ comedic ear detecting everything from the quirky to the downright bizarre.
It all began around seven years ago.
Humphries was listening to the memoir of former Prime Minister John Howard, Lazarus Rising, when he heard something… odd.
In a clip shared to Humphries’ Instagram account, Howard can be heard narrating his book.
He begins: “It’s a long road that has no turning, is one that largely disappeared.”
Then, suddenly, the voice of Australia’s 25th Prime Minister takes a less animated tilt. Frustration can be heard piercing the edges of his usually measured tone as he announces, “Let’s start that again.”
Yes. That moment, including Howard’s stop-start, is all there on the audiobook.
As Humphries keeps asking, “Who’s actually listening?” Or rather, was anyone actually listening at the time?
“I’ve been sitting on that content for seven years. No one noticed it then, and no one has noticed it now.”
Well, that is, until Humphries came along.
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“The first video I did in this series was one on Liza Minnelli, where it’s clear an AI version of her voice was used for the audiobook,” he said, highlighting a peculiar way the Minnelli in the book pronounced a name.
“So there’s a song called Liza with a Z. It’s a song that was written for Liza. It’s about her name, and there’s a particular lyric that goes like this. It’s Liza with a Z, not Liza with an S, because Liza with an S goes sssss, not zzzzzz.
“Here’s how AI Liza recorded that. It’s Liza with a Z, not Liza with an S, because Liza with an S goes snoz.”
Humphries said that he was “so amazed by the response” after sharing it to his account that he thought “well, maybe there’s room now for the Howard thing. So then I did that, and then it was like, well, what else do I remember?”
The answer, as it turns out, is a lot.
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Obama, baldness and the algorithm
One clip in particular, centred on Barack Obama’s audiobook, A Promised Land.
“I had actually posted that observation before, and it always goes gangbusters. I think the latest version is about 560,000 views. It’s just because it’s such a weird little thing, it doesn’t mean anything.”
The “weird little thing” in question? The former US President’s need to point out the follically challenged.
Exhibit A: “We had recruited a savvy, former senior House Democratic staffer named Phil Schallier. He was tall and balding.”
Exhibit B: “I enlisted the immense talents of Ben Rhodes. Short and prematurely balding.”
Exhibit C: “I was leaning toward hiring Bill Daley, balding and about a decade older than me.”
Exhibit D: “Paul Tooze, stocky and slightly balding.”
Exhibit E: “Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, balding and bespectacled.”
“The first time I heard him describe someone as bald, I thought, ‘I feel like I’ve heard him say this about someone else’. Then I did a word search and said, ‘Oh my God’, he said it five times about different people.
“I mean, it’s not that important, but it’s curious. Just an odd little choice that is scattered throughout this book. Like, why the focus?” Indeed.
Big growth, stranger conversations
Look, it’s safe to say that audiobooks are having a moment, commercially at least. The growth is there – the data confirms it – while the audience is also building.
But alongside that, listeners, like Humphries, aren’t just tuning in, they’re picking things apart, replaying moments, and turning the smallest details into content of their own, bringing us neatly back to Humphries’ original question.
People are listening. Just maybe not always in the way the industry expects.
Main image: Would you believe it, AI-generated. I know, hard to tell these days.