Audio Maintains Slim Lead As Preferred Podcast Format

Video podcasts are not replacing audio, new research from SiriusXM Media and Edison Research finds. In the past month, 90% of monthly podcast consumers listened to an audio-first show and 89% consumed a video podcast — nearly identical shares, with both formats growing.

Seven in 10 did both. Only 10% listened exclusively, and 20% watched exclusively. Nearly half said they are consuming more audio than a year ago, and nearly half said the same about video. “Video isn’t growing because people have suddenly stopped listening and discovered video,” Edison Research Vice President Megan Lazovick said. “Audio is growing alongside it.”

Listeners move between formats by occasion rather than loyalty. Audio is the choice for 68% in the car, 54% while working and 51% while exercising. On the go, 55% choose to listen, three times the share who actively watch. Even video often functions as audio: 72% of monthly consumers have played a video podcast in the background or minimized the picture in the past month.

Discovery is also crossing formats. Seventy-seven percent encounter podcast clips on social media, and two in three of those later seek out a full episode. Melissa Paris, vice president of sales research at SiriusXM Media, said there is no longer one dominant front door to podcasting. Advertisers see little difference in impact: ad recall was 75% for both formats, with attention levels close.

The findings, discussed in a late-September webinar with Publicis Media’s PMX unit titled “The Format Wars Never Happened,” come from a second-quarter survey of more than 2,000 U.S. monthly podcast consumers age 13 and older. They push back on an industry debate that intensified as YouTube and other video platforms became major podcast destinations. Edison’s broader Podcast Consumer 2026 report had already found watching and listening running roughly even among weekly consumers, a shift from 2023, when audio-only use was clearly ahead. The newer study’s point is narrower: the rise of video is expanding the audience, not emptying the audio one.