by Tom Webster
Podcasting's audience is large and stable, but it is increasingly consuming in places not built for podcasts.
On Tuesday, October 13th, at Noon ET Tom Webster and Glenn Rubenstein will co-present a new analysis of The Podcast Atlas built around podcasting's heaviest buyers: the Super Spenders. Who are they? How do they consume podcasts differently - or do they? Where do they show up across audio, video, clips, and social? And which behavior identifies them most reliably in the study? Together, they'll connect those patterns to what agencies see when real budgets are on the line - and what it means for how podcast advertising should be bought, sold, and measured. Registration for The Super Spenders: Who Really Buys From Podcast Ads is open now!
A short one this week as many of us steel ourselves for Advertising Week in New York coming up next week.
Part One of The Podcast Landscape 2026, our annual study of how Americans consume podcasts, is out today. This installment covers the fundamentals — reach, platforms, devices, video, and who the audience is — from a census-weighted survey of 5,473 US adults fielded in August. Five findings stand out.
Reach held steady. 74% of American adults have consumed a podcast, 55% in the past month, and 39% in the past week. All three numbers are within a point of 2025. Podcasting's audience is large and stable — and after two decades of growth, "stable" is itself news.
Third place is Netflix. Asked which apps and services they used for podcasts in the past year, consumers put YouTube first (63%), Spotify second (33%), and Netflix third (21%) — ahead of Apple Podcasts (15%), in Netflix's first year carrying podcasts at all.
Podcast-native apps kept shrinking. The share of consumers who call a purpose-built podcast app their most-used platform fell from 19% to 15% in a single year. Apple Podcasts went from 11% to 8%. The medium is increasingly consumed in places that were not built for it.
Video kept growing inside that stable audience. 44% of consumers watched a video podcast in the past week, up from 40%, and the share who have never watched one fell from 14% to 10%. Only 17% of Americans still expect a podcast to be audio-only.
Podcasts are becoming something people do together. 40% of consumers at least occasionally consume podcasts with other people, up from 37%. A medium born as one person with headphones is, at the margins, turning into a shared screen in the living room.
I am going to have a lot more to say about these numbers over the coming months, and we will also be releasing additional studies from this data (including one on AI that I can't wait to share). I've already written about the Netflix finding, but if you'd like to see that performed over 30 minutes instead of a more efficient newsletter, you can now watch my keynote from Podcast Movement in New York City here.
I remain very bullish on podcasting, and the potential of the medium to reach people in new ways (like Smart TVs), all while I am also concerned about becoming second-class citizens of the very platforms that helped us grow. But as it has been for the last two decades of research I have helped contribute to in this space, you can expect me to be firmly rooted in the best data we have about the present moment. And the present moment is that podcasting is in a wonderful place, filled with opportunity and wonderful people. And you look nice today.
New Partners
Sounds Profitable exists thanks to the continued support of our amazing partners. Monthly consulting, free tickets to our quarterly events, partner-only webinars, and access to our 1,800+ person slack channel are all benefits of partnering Sounds Profitable.
Lemonada Media: A podcast network that shares the unfiltered version of the human experience.
AccuRadio is one of North America’s leading brands of online radio, featuring 1,400+ curated and personalizable channels of music, spanning 50+ genres of music and attracting an adult, educated, and upscale audience.
Klaris is a boutique entertainment & media law firm with US/EU qualified attorneys, which supports podcast production companies and executives in a deal-making and advisory capacity, from BA support through to drafting.
Liyam AI is an end-to-end production platform for podcast hosts designed to help hosts create more engaging content, stay organized, and open up new and unique monetization streams.
Want to learn more about partnership? Hit reply or send us an email!
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