Paul Riismandel
Last week we released the 16th edition of the Podcast Download, a joint project between Westwood One / Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights. We conduct this survey twice a year, in the spring and the fall. One powerful aspect of this cadence is the ability to track the development of trends in something closer to real time.
For instance, after three years of slowly growing its share, April 2022 was when we first saw YouTube rival Spotify as the most used podcast platform in the US among weekly podcast consumers. We then saw it firmly take the lead a year later, where it’s remained since.
Podcasting has experienced a lot of meaningful change in these last four years, and with this spring’s Download I’ve identified three trends that are driving these changes.
Trend #1: Audience Growth Is a Potent Force
Year by year the industry closely follows growth of the podcast audience as seen in the percentage of the population who are listening monthly or weekly. But only looking at this percentage can obscure the true scale of growth, since the US population is growing along with the reach of podcasts.
Since the Download is a survey of people who consume podcasts weekly, let’s examine that group.
In 2022 only about a quarter of people in the US aged 12+ – 26% – had listened to a podcast in the last week, according to Edison Research’s Infinite Dial. That totaled 74 million weekly podcast listeners.
Today, in 2026, nearly half of the US 12+ population – 45% – consumed a podcast in the last week. How many people is that? 130 million.
That 19 percentage points of growth in four years is certainly remarkable; the increase in number of listeners is even more so. There are 76% more weekly podcast consumers in 2026 compared to 2022, constituting an additional 56 million people.
But the growth itself is only one part of the story. By any measure, 56 million is a heck of a lot of people who watched or listened to their first podcast since then. The thing is, the podcast world they’re experiencing is notably different than what existed when most of us in the industry first got into the medium, especially compared to 10 or more years ago.
Trend #2: 56 Million New Podcast Consumers Have Fresh Expectations
I saw this clearly when examining the change in weekly podcast consumers’ expectations around video. In 2022 the largest proportion – 42% – told us that they prefer “audio-only without video,” while 30% said they prefer “actively watching” podcast video.
Today, four years later, half (49%) say they prefer “actively watching,” and only a fifth prefer “audio-only.” Interestingly, the share who say they prefer “video in the background” is mostly unchanged: 28% in 2022 to 30% in 2026.
Digging under the surface we see that listeners’ tenure with podcasts influences this preference – newer consumers prefer active watching more than podcast veterans do.
Over half – 55% – of those who’ve been listening to podcasts for less than four years choose actively watching while 42% of those who’ve been with the medium four years or more indicate this preference. Perhaps not incidentally, that’s equivalent to the overall share four years ago.
The takeaway is that people’s individual preferences didn’t necessarily change. Instead, a lot of those new people – 58 million of them – have different preferences.
Audiences who started with podcasts in the last four years have entered a world where video is much more common and available. They’re more likely to be habituated to video right away compared even to 2022. Moreover, they don’t necessarily have an experience of podcasts as a presumptively audio-only medium.
This isn’t just about video, it’s about every aspect of the podcast experience, from platform and format to ad load. New audiences have their expectations and preferences shaped by what they hear and see on their first podcasts and where they find them. This means every podcaster and host is a teacher, demonstrating to eager new students what podcasts are like.
Trend #3: Exposure Stimulates Awareness, Awareness Stimulates Growth (and Change)
The biggest bombshell in this spring’s Download is awareness of podcasts on five popular video streaming platforms. Leading the pack, we found that 62% of weekly podcast consumers said they knew about podcasts being available on Netflix.
Keep in mind that Netflix only debuted podcasts at the beginning of the year, and we fielded the survey in late April. That’s a truly notable explosion of recognition in just four months.
To better uncover what’s going on, Liz Mayer, my colleague at Cumulus / Westwood One, segmented the results by current last-month users of each. The difference is striking.
Seven-in-ten current Netflix users said they were aware of podcasts on the platform, compared to just 31% of those who either haven’t used it in the last month, or have never used it. The reason for the disparity is clear when you recognize that Netflix has been pushing podcasts, giving them a prominent place on viewers’ home screen. That’s putting podcasts in front of millions of new eyes.
Liz compared this to when Spotify updated its app, giving podcasts their own tab, making them much less missable. That was June 2019. Also that year we first asked the question about the platform listeners use most often. We fielded the study in March, one month after Spotify acquired Gimlet and Anchor, and about three months before that app update.
At that time more weekly listeners – 29% – used Apple Podcasts most, while only a little more than half as many – 16% – said Spotify. Just a year later, in 2020, a fifth said they used Spotify most often. The platform’s share peaked another year later, in fall 2021, at 27%, overtaking Apple for the first time.
It’s likely not an accident that the podcast audience’s increasing preference for Spotify coincided with the platform making podcasts more accessible. Spotify became an engine for growth because it was primarily a music app – already the most used one in the country at the time. The platform was putting podcasts in front of many more fresh eyes and ears than a single-purpose podcast app could.
Does this mean we’re going to see video streaming services compete with Spotify and YouTube? It’s too early to say, but I’d be careful betting against it. If they do, my bet is that they’ll do so by growing the overall podcast audience. Instead of fighting for a bigger piece, they’ll help bake a bigger pie.
How to Acknowledge and Manage the Changes in Podcasting
How to manage these changes?
Pay attention to new audiences. That doesn’t mean you need to chase trends, cater, or pander. Instead, it means researching, listening and educating.
Don’t assume that new podcast fans know or understand even the recent history of the medium. If they’re finding you on YouTube, Tiktok, Instagram, or even Netlix, there’s a good chance they don’t know they can catch your show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or other apps.
Understand that the podcast audience is not a monolith, and the overall trends don’t reflect every consumer. Your audience, or the one you want to reach and serve, may have substantially different habits and preferences than the average. It’s important to dig deeper.
Every podcast episode, clip, short, social post, or newsletter is a new opportunity to educate an audience – especially new members of the audience – on how and why they should listen to your show.
Platforms with wide reach beyond podcasting are certainly a growth opportunity, but one that should be embraced strategically. Again, education is key. Tell your audience all the ways they can watch or listen to your show. Explain why using an audio-focused app is useful for those times when screens aren’t practical or desirable.
Keep in mind that trends change fast – stay on top of the research. We’re seeing growing questioning of and popular resistance to screen addiction and the endless scrolling of short-form content – especially among young people. Perhaps it’s time to suggest your podcast as an antidote, rather than just doubling-down on clips.
The Signal Hill Insights team helps podcasters, publishers and advertisers tackle all of these trends. We design custom research solutions, leveraging audience insights from over 66,000 podcast consumers a year. Get in touch to learn how we can help you adapt to these rapid changes, and thrive.
Paul Riismandel
As a veteran in podcasting and audio, Paul has been researching and sharing why and how podcast advertising works since the dawn of the industry. As President, Paul leads the development of insights at Signal Hill to drive the podcasting industry forward. Paul can't get away from audio even in his spare time – he's a volunteer community radio DJ and an avid vinyl enthusiast.
