Podcast use now spans audio listening, video viewing, news consumption and advertising. The figures below separate U.S. age-12-and-older measures from U.S. adult studies and UK weekly-reach measures, while distinguishing surveys, estimates, observed platform data and forecasts.
Key Podcast Statistics
The most useful high-level podcast statistics are:
- In 2025, 70% of Americans aged 12 and older had ever listened to a podcast.
- In 2025, 55% of Americans aged 12 and older were monthly podcast consumers.
- In 2025, 73% of Americans aged 12 and older consumed a podcast in audio or video form, an estimated 210 million people.
- In 2025, 51% of Americans aged 12 and older had watched a podcast.
- In 2023, 31% of Americans aged 12 and older listened to podcasts weekly.
- In the first quarter of 2024, 27.9% of UK adults aged 15 and older had weekly podcast reach.
- In 2024, 11.7 million UK adults listened to at least one podcast weekly.
- In 2024, 71% of UK monthly podcast listeners heard one to five individual podcasts per week.
- In 2025, 33% of U.S. weekly podcast listeners used YouTube most often to listen.
- In 2024, YouTube viewers watched more than 400 million hours of podcasts monthly on living-room devices worldwide.
- In 2022, 20% of U.S. podcast listeners listened nearly every day.
- In 2025, 32% of U.S. adults got news from podcasts at least sometimes.
- In 2023, U.S. podcast advertising revenue reached $1.9 billion.
- In 2023, sports represented 13% of U.S. podcast advertising revenue by content genre.
- In 2022, 76% of 434 top-ranked podcasts brought on at least one guest.
- In 2022, more than 7,000 people appeared on the studied top-ranked podcasts.
- In 2024, Spotify reported an 88% year-over-year surge in users consuming video podcasts.
Contents
- U.S. podcast reach and listening growth
- Podcast audience demographics in the UK
- Weekly podcast habits, platforms and video
- Podcast genre, news use and listener motivations
- Podcast advertising revenue and market trends
- Podcast formats, guests and creator content
U.S. Podcast Reach and Listening Growth
The Edison Research measures use among Americans aged 12 and older. Its 2025 results distinguish ever listening, monthly use, combined audio-or-video consumption, watching and the overlap between watching and listening.
- The Edison Research, The Infinite Dial 2025 reports that 70% of Americans aged 12 and older had ever listened to a podcast in 2025; this is an ever-listening measure, not monthly or weekly use.
- Monthly podcast consumption reached 55% of Americans aged 12 and older in 2025, based on self-reported use.
- Audio or video podcast consumption reached 73% of Americans aged 12 and older in 2025, equivalent to an estimated 210 million people; the combined definition and population count are estimates.
- Watching a podcast reached 51% of Americans aged 12 and older in 2025, while 48% both listened to and watched one.
Pew Research provides a longer U.S. series, but its measures should not be treated as identical to Edison’s 2025 measures. The populations are similar in age coverage for the age-12-plus series, while the survey wording and collection details can vary across years.
| U.S. age 12+ measure | Earlier period | Later period | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ever listening | 2006 | 2023 | 11% to 64% |
| Monthly listening | 2008 | 2023 | 9% to 42% |
| Weekly listening | 2013 | 2023 | 7% to 31% |
The Pew Research Center, Trends and Facts on Audio and Podcasts reports the series above. Weekly listening was 28% in 2021 and 26% in 2022, so annual survey estimates do not form a continuous panel.
Podcast Audience Demographics in the UK
UK figures use weekly reach, which is different from monthly listening or ever listening. Ofcom and RAJAR also caution that comparisons can be affected by methodology changes.
In Q1 2024, weekly podcast reach was 27.9% among UK adults aged 15 and older. The age profile from Ofcom’s Media Nations: UK 2024 was:
- 24.6% among people aged 15–24.
- 23.6% among people aged 25–34.
- 20.7% among people aged 35–44.
- 18.5% among people aged 45–54.
- 11.0% among people aged 55–64.
Ofcom’s separate 2024 summary estimated that 11.7 million UK adults listened to at least one podcast weekly, just over 20% of adults. It also described almost one-third of UK adults aged 25–34 as weekly listeners and reported that more than one in ten people aged 65 and older listened weekly in early 2024.
These UK results are estimates and approximate descriptions where Ofcom says so. They should remain separate from the Q1 RAJAR-based age-group percentages rather than being combined into a single ranking.
Weekly Podcast Habits, Platforms and Video Consumption
Among UK respondents who listened at least monthly in 2024, most reported a relatively small weekly set of individual podcasts. The base is monthly podcast listeners, not all UK adults.
| Individual podcasts heard weekly | Share of UK monthly listeners, 2024 |
|---|---|
| One or two | 30% |
| Three to five | 41% |
| Six to ten | 16% |
| 11–20 | 6% |
| 21 or more | 2% |
The Ofcom, Media Nations: UK 2024 reports that 71% listened to one to five individual podcasts per week, while 24% listened to six or more. The detailed categories above are survey response groups and should not be read as episode counts.
Platform behavior increasingly includes video. In the U.S., 33% of weekly podcast listeners used YouTube most often to listen in 2025; “most often” does not mean exclusive use, according to Edison Research.
YouTube reported that viewers watched more than 400 million hours of podcasts per month on living-room devices worldwide in 2024. The YouTube, Smash that replay button: a 2024 recap of YouTube on TV figure is platform-reported and excludes other devices and services.
Podcast Genre, News Use and Listener Motivations
Pew Research’s 2022 study describes U.S. adults who had listened to a podcast in the past year, rather than the age-12-plus population used in Edison’s reach measures. About 50% of U.S. adults had listened in the past year, and 20% of U.S. podcast listeners listened nearly every day.
The Pew Research Center, How Americans Use Podcasts To Get News and Information found that 29% of U.S. podcast listeners said staying up to date about current events was a major reason for listening. Also, 21% said the podcasts they listened to were connected to a news organization, while 59% said they were not; 21% were unsure in the source survey.
News use remained measurable in a later Pew fact-sheet series. In 2025, 32% of U.S. adults got news from podcasts at least sometimes and 10% often got news from podcasts; among adults under 50, 39% did so often or sometimes, compared with 24% of adults aged 50 and older.
These are self-reported frequency measures from Pew Research, Trends and Facts on Audio and Podcasts.
The differences between the 2022 and 2025 figures reflect different questions and periods. They should be used as separate indicators of podcast listening and news use, not as a single trend line.
Podcast Advertising Revenue and Market Trends
U.S. podcast advertising figures from IAB and PwC are market estimates, not a count of listener spending. The 2024 and 2026 values below were forecasts when published and are not observed outcomes.
| Market measure | Period | Reported result |
|---|---|---|
| Advertising revenue | 2023 | $1.9 billion |
| Year-over-year revenue growth | 2023 | 5% |
| Projected growth | 2024 | 12% |
| Projected revenue | 2024 | Above $2 billion |
| Projected revenue | 2026 | Near $2.6 billion |
According to the IAB, Podcast Revenue Growth Slowed in 2023, Will Return to Double-Digit Growth in 2024, U.S. podcast advertising revenue grew more than 115% cumulatively from 2020 to 2022. That cumulative rate is not annualized.
Sports represented 13% of U.S. podcast advertising revenue by content genre in 2023. Categories may overlap by publisher classification, so the genre share is an estimate rather than a universal taxonomy.
Comedy podcasts gained nearly 300 advertisers in Q4 2023. This is an IAB-reported, rounded advertiser count, not a measure of total comedy-podcast revenue or audience.
Podcast Formats, Guests and Creator Content
Pew Research analyzed 434 top-ranked podcasts on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and their 2022 episodes. The sample describes prominent shows, not the full podcast universe.
- The Pew Research Center, Most Top-Ranked Podcasts Bring On Guests found that 76% of the 434 podcasts brought on at least one guest in 2022.
- Guests appeared regularly—in 50% to 89% of episodes—on 22% of top-ranked podcasts, while 5% had guests in at least 90% of episodes.
- More than 7,000 people appeared on the studied podcasts, producing almost 11,000 guest appearances; the latter includes repeat appearances.
Guest patterns varied by genre. Regular guests appeared on 48% of top-ranked entertainment podcasts, 33% of sports podcasts and 4% of true-crime podcasts in 2022.
News-focused shows were especially likely to use guests: 89% hosted at least one guest, 31% hosted guests regularly, and 13% almost always hosted guests. The study defines “regularly” as guests in 50%–89% of episodes and “almost always” as guests in at least 90%.
Repeat appearances were also common. Forty-nine percent of all top-ranked podcasts had at least one repeat guest, while a typical podcast that regularly had guests devoted 7% of guest appearances to repeat guests.
Video is another format trend, but platform-specific measures require care. Spotify reported an 88% year-over-year surge in users consuming video podcasts in 2024, and more than half of podcasts that charted on Spotify in 2024 were not on the charts in 2023; both findings are platform-reported in Spotify’s 2024 podcast listening recap, so they do not measure overall podcast success or total audience share.