Podcast listening in the U.S. reached new highs over the past year, as the medium continues to expand its audience base.
Yet for this audio-first medium, video is what has people talking.
The recently released 2026 edition of Edison Research’s Infinite Dial reports that 58% of Americans age 12 and older listened to a podcast in February 2026. That’s equal to about 167 million people.
That is the highest monthly podcast reach recorded in the study’s history, according to the Edison Research report.
Just how big is podcasting? Conan O’Brien said his podcast “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” allows him to reach more people than he did in late-night TV; in an interview with The New Yorker he said this allows him to be a “master of my own destiny.”
The show told Podcast News Daily that it has amassed some 660 million downloads since its launch.
Radio entities too have been expanding their podcasting capabilities. According to Triton Digital’s U.S. Podcast Report, iHeartMedia averaged 69 million weekly downloads, followed by NPR’s 27.2 million and Audacy recording 14.8 million average weekly downloads.
Optimizing for Video
According to the Triton report, listening is still the predominant method to consume podcasting. But the popularity of video podcasting has grown dramatically, and audio-first brands are expanding quickly into multiplatform operations.
Consumers are leaning into this and expanding how and where they engage with podcasts.
In fact, most consumers both listen and watch. A whopping 80% of respondents 18-plus said they consume podcasts both ways.
(Triton’s report also looked at how various genres behave differently in video; some are “watch-forward,” others “listen- forward.” People often listen to science, history and fiction. They often watch music and sports, while comedy tends to bridge both behaviors.)
iHeartMedia is enhancing its podcast offerings by adding full-length video podcast distribution to iHeartRadio. The company said the move is designed to expand reach for creators.
Podcasts offer flexible multimedia opportunities for broadcasters, including video. iHeartMedia is deepening its “Creators First” strategy and has added full-length video podcast distribution to iHeartRadio at no cost to creators. The media company has also inked a video podcast partnership with Netflix.
Video is also coming to Apple Podcasts and, for the first time, so is dynamic ad insertion for video episodes, according to Apple. The company says it will roll out the “transformative” update this spring, using Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) technology that will give creators new control and monetization opportunities while delivering the new viewing option for users.
Beginning later this year, podcasters will be able to distribute full-length video versions of their shows directly into both the app and web versions of iHeartRadio, alongside traditional audio episodes.
iHeartMedia also recently announced a video podcasting partnership with Netflix.
On an investor call in March, Bob Pittman, CEO of iHeartMedia, called video podcasting “a wonderful expansion of the marketplace.”
AI continues to change podcasting in exciting ways, said Gary Levitt, an audio engineer and co-founder of Future Moments, which releases apps for content creation.
“Because AI can transcribe audio so easily, podcasts are becoming fully searchable by text. It’s turning millions of hours of conversations into an incredible knowledge resource,” Levitt said.
“Now tools like TapeSearch and Listen Notes make it possible to search any topic and instantly find the exact moment it was discussed in a podcast.”
Monetization of Podcasts
Podcast advertising also continues to surge, according to research firm Magellan AI.
E-commerce and retail brands remain deeply invested in podcasting, it said, with financial services, telecom and tech remaining the top advertisers.
Magellan AI analyzes podcast advertising data from the top 3,000 U.S. podcasts as ranked by Apple Podcasts. It said the top 15 advertisers spent a combined $59.8 million in January.
As part of NAB Show’s Broadcast Management and Monetization Conference, the session “Hot Digital Trends: What to Know About Video, Podcasts and AI” explores where broadcast operations should invest their time and money.
Moderated by multimedia journalist John Wordock of WTOP in Washington, D.C., the panel (2:45 to 3:45 p.m. today in Room N259) will offer insights on these key digital areas.
Wordock said every broadcaster, whether television or radio, whether small market or large market, needs to create a strategy for video podcasts on YouTube.
“Think of YouTube as a storefront window for your podcast,” Wordock said.
The session will feature Andy Slater, head of partnerships at ART19, Amazon’s podcast hosting and monetization platform. A 10-year veteran of the podcasting space, Slater works with top-tier creators and networks to optimize their publishing workflows and scale global ad revenue.
Video will also be the focus of today’s “Creating Automated Video for Podcasting” (C9226 Creator Lab Classroom). The session promises to help creators streamline camera switching, audio, recording and live streaming with smart production tech.
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