Report: Podcasting Tops 53% Monthly Reach in U.S.

RADIO ONLINE | Thursday, February 19, 2026 | 1:10pm CT

Triton Digital

Podcasting now reaches more than half of the U.S. population each month, with 53.6% of Americans listening to or watching podcasts, according to Triton Digital's 2025 U.S. Podcast Report. The annual study, powered by IAB Tech Lab-certified Podcast Metrics and Demos surveys of 12,000 monthly listeners, highlights continued audience growth, expanding video consumption and evolving advertiser opportunities.

Monthly reach is strongest among adults 18-34 at 68.7%, followed by 35-54 at 62.1%, while 35% of those 55+ report monthly usage. Hispanic consumers (66.1%) and Black/African American consumers (59.0%) index strongly for monthly reach.

Podcast listeners skew younger, more educated and more affluent than the general population, with above-average representation among college graduates and households earning $100,000 or more.

In RSS-based new episode downloads, Apple Podcasts leads with 49.7% share, followed by Spotify at 15.7% and iHeartRadio at 7.6%. However, YouTube continues to gain ground as the most-used platform overall for podcast consumption. In 2025, 37.7% of monthly listeners say they use YouTube most often, compared with 24.6% for Spotify and 11.3% for Apple Podcasts.

Listening remains the dominant format, but video continues to grow. Thirteen percent of the monthly audience listens only, 7% watches only, and 80% both listen and watch podcasts.

Comedy leads all genres in monthly reach at 41.5%, followed by News (26.5%) and Society & Culture (22.8%). Science, History and Fiction skew toward listening, while Music and Sports over-index for watching. Comedy bridges both behaviors.

The influx of new listeners is helping drive growth in niche categories such as Kids & Family, Arts and Music, with as much as 45% of Kids & Family consumers reporting they are new to podcasting within the past year.

Among the top 20 podcasts by downloads in 2025, nine are News programs. NPR News Now ranks as the most downloaded podcast of the year.

The iHeart Audience Network leads in overall downloads among sales networks, while "Bulwark Takes" tops the list of new podcast launches based on average weekly downloads.

As audiences diversify, new listeners show strong purchase intent across categories including wireless providers, online shopping, quick-service restaurants and weight-loss products.

Triton says it plans to expand its tools in 2026 to deliver deeper insights and support industry collaboration as podcasting continues to evolve.

The full report is available from Triton Digital at TritonRankers.com