Podcast Statistics 2026: Listening, Video and Ads

Fifty-eight percent. That's the share of Americans aged 12 and over who consumed a podcast in the last month, according to Edison Research's Infinite Dial 2026 study, run with SSRS. It's an all-time high, and Edison puts it at 167 million people. If you need one podcast number for an article, that's the one.

One thing to know before you quote it. Edison's 2026 figures are taken from its press release as reprinted on Podnews, so I name Edison as the source and don't link the reprint. If you need a figure you can link to a published method, Pew Research Center's 2025 survey found 54% of US adults had listened to a podcast in the past 12 months. The two don't contradict each other: Edison counts everyone aged 12+ over the last month, Pew counts adults over a full year.

Last checked 12 November 2026.

Five podcast figures to remember

58% of Americans aged 12+ (167 million people) consumed a podcast in the last month, an all-time high (2026 data). Source: Edison Research at SSRS, Infinite Dial 2026.
45% of Americans aged 12+ (130 million) consumed a podcast in the last week (2026 data). Source: Edison Research at SSRS.
26% of the UK population tuned in to podcast episodes in an average week in RAJAR's Summer 2026 MIDAS wave (2026 data). Source: RAJAR.
$2.9 billion went on US podcast advertising in 2025, up 17.6% year over year (2025 data). Source: IAB and PwC Internet Advertising Revenue Report.
More than 1 billion monthly active viewers watched podcast content on YouTube, by the company's own count for January 2025 (2025 data). Source: YouTube.

The rest of the page sorts the numbers by who measured them, because a podcast figure is only as good as the question behind it. Edison asks Americans aged 12 and over about the last month or the last week. Pew asks US adults about the past year. RAJAR measures UK listening in hours. And the platforms count their own users, which is useful, but it's marketing as much as measurement.

Americans who listen, watch or have ever tried a podcast

These come from the same Edison Research release as the headline figure, dated 13 March 2026. The release doesn't state its fieldwork dates, so I've left them out rather than guess.

80% of Americans aged 12+ (230 million) have ever listened to or watched a podcast, an all-time high (2026 data). Source: Edison Research at SSRS.
68% of Americans aged 35-54 consumed a podcast in the last month (2026 data). Source: Edison Research at SSRS.
57% of Americans aged 12+ have both listened to and watched a podcast (2026 data). Source: Edison Research at SSRS.
81% of Americans aged 12+ (233 million) listened to online audio in the last month, a wider measure than podcasts alone (2026 data). Source: Edison Research at SSRS.
84% of Americans aged 12+ used YouTube monthly, and 78% used it weekly (2026 data). Source: Edison Research at SSRS.

The 57% is the figure I'd use if someone tells you a podcast is an audio-only format. More than half of Americans aged 12 and over have both listened to one and watched one. If you're thinking about video and want a rough sense of what views on YouTube can be worth, my YouTube earnings calculator does that sum for you.

Pew on podcast listeners, age and news

Pew Research Center surveyed US adults from 18 to 24 August 2025 and published the results on 25 September 2025. It's the cleanest independent source here, and the only one in this section with a public method you can link.

54% of US adults listened to a podcast in the past 12 months, up slightly from when Pew first asked in 2022 (2025 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
67% of US adults aged 18 to 29 listened to a podcast in the past 12 months (2025 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
33% of US adults aged 65 and older listened to a podcast in the past 12 months (2025 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
32% of US adults get news from podcasts at least sometimes, against 22% in 2020 (2025 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
10% of US adults often get news from podcasts (2025 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
39% of US adults under 50 get news from podcasts often or sometimes, against 24% of those 50 and older (2025 data). Source: Pew Research Center.
6% of US adults directly paid for or gave money to news podcasts in the past 12 months (2025 data). Source: Pew Research Center.

Age is the clearest split in Pew's data. Adults under 30 are about twice as likely as those 65 and older to have listened in the past year, and news listening follows the same line. The 6% who've paid for a news podcast is small, so for most shows the money still comes from advertising.

Thirteen years of growth, 2013 to 2026

Pew's audio and podcasting fact sheet, dated June 2023, reprints Edison's long-run series. These are older figures, so treat them as the trend line rather than the current number. The latest from Edison itself is the 58% monthly and 45% weekly reach for 2026.

12% of Americans aged 12+ listened to a podcast in the past month in 2013 (2013 data). Source: Pew Research Center, citing Edison Research.
42% of Americans aged 12+ had listened to a podcast in the past month as of 2023, since overtaken by 58% in 2026 (2023 data). Source: Pew Research Center, citing Edison Research.
7% of Americans aged 12+ listened to a podcast in the last week in 2013 (2013 data). Source: Pew Research Center, citing Edison Research.
31% of Americans aged 12+ listened to a podcast in the last week in 2023, since overtaken by 45% in 2026 (2023 data). Source: Pew Research Center, citing Edison Research.

Put the two ends side by side and monthly reach went from 12% in 2013 to 58% in 2026, and weekly reach from 7% to 45%. Both series count Americans aged 12 and over, which is why they can sit on one line.

UK listening: hours, devices and favourite apps

RAJAR's MIDAS survey is the UK radio industry's measure of how people listen to audio. The figures below come from RAJAR's own PDF for the Summer 2026 wave; the exact publication month isn't printed in it. The app split comes from Edison Research's UK podcast consumer study for Q1 2026, which I read as a press release on Podnews dated 17 July 2026.

6.9 hours a week is roughly how long each weekly UK podcast listener spent listening in the Summer 2026 MIDAS wave (2026 data). Source: RAJAR.
106 million hours were spent listening to podcasts in the UK in an average week (2026 data). Source: RAJAR.
87% of UK podcast listening hours were consumed alone (2026 data). Source: RAJAR.
69% of UK podcast listening was via apps on a smartphone (2026 data). Source: RAJAR.
29% of UK weekly podcast listeners aged 15+ chose YouTube as the service they use most, ahead of Spotify at 28% (Q1 2026 data). Source: Edison Research at SSRS.
15% of UK podcast consumers used BBC Sounds as their primary service (Q1 2026 data). Source: Edison Research at SSRS.
29 podcasts were enough to reach 50% of UK weekly podcast consumers aged 15+, fewer than were needed in 2023 (Q1 2026 data). Source: Edison Research at SSRS.

Two things stand out for anyone making a UK show. Most listening happens alone, on a phone. And the audience is gathering around fewer big shows, with just 29 podcasts now reaching half of weekly listeners, fewer than it took in 2023.

Work with me

Want AI doing the heavy lifting in your marketing?

I build the systems that handle the boring 80 percent, so you get your week back. Done properly, with the human kept in.

Book a free 30-minute call Or grab the free resources →

Video podcasts, platform claims and the advertising money

Every platform figure in this section is company-reported: YouTube, Spotify and SiriusXM describing their own services. They're named, not linked, apart from SiriusXM's, which sits in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

500 million+ Spotify users had streamed a video podcast, up nearly 50% year over year, per the company's May 2026 investor day post (2026 data). Source: Spotify.
Nearly 500,000 shows were in Spotify's video podcast catalog, the company said in November 2025 (2025 data). Source: Spotify.
Nearly two-thirds of podcast listeners prefer podcasts with video, Spotify said in March 2025, without giving the survey base (2025 data). Source: Spotify.
255 million unduplicated monthly listeners were reached by SiriusXM's platform with YouTube Audio, up from 170 million a year earlier; that's all audio, not podcasts alone (October 2026 data). Source: SiriusXM.
$100 million+ was paid out to podcast publishers and podcasters worldwide in the first quarter of 2025, by the company's own count (2025 data). Source: Spotify.
300%+ growth in payouts to creators in Spotify's Partner Program in January 2025 compared with the previous year, per the company (2025 data). Source: Spotify.

Read the SiriusXM number with care. It counts SiriusXM Media's reach across all audio, including YouTube Audio, so it isn't a podcast audience and shouldn't be quoted as one. The IAB and PwC advertising figure has its own caveat: the report uses the traditional audio-based definition of a podcast, which it says is expanding fast as video grows. If you're comparing podcast spend with other channels, my content marketing statistics cover where audiences and budgets are moving more widely.

One table to copy, and how to cite it

Measure	Figure	Year	Source
Americans 12+ who consumed a podcast in the last month	58%	2026	Edison Research at SSRS
Americans 12+ who consumed a podcast in the last week	45%	2026	Edison Research at SSRS
Americans 12+ who have ever listened to or watched a podcast	80%	2026	Edison Research at SSRS
US adults who listened to a podcast in the past 12 months	54%	2025	Pew Research Center
US adults who get news from podcasts at least sometimes	32%	2025	Pew Research Center
UK population tuning in to podcasts in an average week	26%	2026	RAJAR
UK podcast listening hours consumed alone	87%	2026	RAJAR
UK weekly podcast listeners 15+ who use YouTube most	29%	2026	Edison Research at SSRS
Monthly active viewers of podcast content on YouTube	1 billion+	2025	YouTube
US podcast advertising revenue	$2.9 billion	2025	IAB and PwC

How to cite this page

Please can you cite it as: Lilach Bullock, "Podcast statistics", 2026, https://www.lilachbullock.com/podcast-statistics/. Better still, cite the original source named beside each figure and link to this page as where you found it.

How this page was checked

Each figure was taken from a page or PDF opened for this update: Edison Research press releases as reprinted on Podnews, Pew Research Center fact sheets, RAJAR's MIDAS PDF, the IAB and PwC report, Spotify's and YouTube's newsrooms, and SiriusXM's SEC filing. An original source here means the organisation that ran the survey or owns the data. Company-published figures and press-release reprints are named but not linked; Pew and the SEC filing are linked because they're the original pages. Where an original couldn't be opened, the figure was left out. Last checked 12 November 2026.

Podcast questions, answered

How many Americans listen to podcasts?

Edison Research found 58% of Americans aged 12+ consumed a podcast in the last month and 45% in the last week in 2026. Pew found 54% of US adults had listened in the past 12 months in 2025.

What share of the UK listens to podcasts each week?

RAJAR's Summer 2026 MIDAS wave found 26% of the UK population tuned in to podcast episodes in an average week, spending around 6.9 hours each.

Do people watch podcasts as well as listen?

Yes. Edison Research found 57% of Americans aged 12+ had both listened to and watched a podcast in 2026, and YouTube reported more than 1 billion monthly active podcast viewers in early 2025.

How much is spent on podcast advertising in the US?

The IAB and PwC report put US podcast advertising revenue at $2.9 billion in 2025, up 17.6% year over year.

Do Americans get news from podcasts?

Pew found 32% of US adults get news from podcasts at least sometimes and 10% do so often, in its 2025 survey.

Is SiriusXM's 255 million a podcast audience?

No. SiriusXM's October 2026 figure of 255 million unduplicated monthly listeners covers all audio, including YouTube Audio, not podcasts alone.

Published and maintained by the Lilach Bullock team, covering marketing, AI and business growth.