Podcasts surpass talk radio in regular listening among Americans, new study finds

Podcasts have now moved ahead of AM/FM talk radio as the leading format for spoken-word audio in the United States, according to Edison Research’s Share of Ear survey.

Edison has tracked these listening patterns for the past decade, and the trend line has been consistent: the share of time spent on podcasts has generally risen. In contrast, time spent on spoken-word radio has gradually declined. For the first time this year, podcasts pulled in 40% of spoken-word listening time, edging out talk radio at 39%.

In a way, it’s almost surprising it took this long for podcasts to pass radio shows. (This comparison does not include music listening on the radio.) But the delayed crossover may say as much about the staying power of traditional radio as it does about the rise of podcasting.

We confirmed with Edison that the survey includes video podcasts. The fact that the question even needs to be asked speaks to how quickly video podcasting has become a major force, with platforms like Spotify and YouTube hosting more and more shows that are meant to be watched as well as heard. That shift has become one of the defining trends in the podcast landscape.

A sign of where things are headed: Netflix has been striking deals with companies like iHeartMedia and Barstool Sports to bring podcasts onto its streaming service, positioning them as a modern spin on the classic daytime talk show. The bet doesn’t look far-fetched — especially given that a lot of podcast consumption is already happening on TVs. YouTube reported that viewers watched 700 million hours of podcasts each month in 2025 on living-room devices such as televisions, up from 400 million the year before.

Even so, the expanding reach of video podcasts is not pulling listeners away from audio-first podcast consumption.

Triton Digital’s U.S. Podcast Report for 2025 found that 80% of consumers aged 18 and older engage with both audio and video podcasts—another 13% with only audio, and 7% with only video. The report also suggested that preferences vary widely by genre. Podcasts focused on music, sports, comedy, and news tend to perform more strongly on video platforms, while categories such as science, history, art, fiction, and true crime are more often consumed in audio form.

Edison’s research points in a similar direction regarding the growing role of video. It found that 85% of weekly U.S. podcast listeners ages 13 and up consume podcasts with a video element, up 7 percentage points from 2023. Edison also estimates there are about 115 million weekly podcast listeners in the United States. Among them, only 5% say they listen to podcasts but don’t watch them.