Podcasting's Growth Drivers, YouTube Tops Streaming, & More

This is the download recap from Sounds Profitable, the most important news from this week and why it matters to people in the business of podcasting. I'm Gavin Gaddis, having just taken my glasses off dramatically because they need me clean. The download is brought to you by Podscribe. Find out more at Podscribe.com. This week's top stories include the podcast Landscape 2025, podcasters are making millions through live events,

YouTube, Netflix, ride the wave of summer streaming highlights in Nielsen's Media Distributor Gauge, and a look at Advertising Week New York. Let's get started. Part one of Sounds Profitable's annual podcast landscape study is now live, this one focusing on core podcast metrics. As revealed in early teases, audience expectations of podcasts to be video or audio.

have shifted slightly since last year. Audio-only expectations have shrunk 5%, while maybe either increased 4%, with the extra 1% going into usually video, maybe audio. As Tom Webster said during his podcast movement keynote, he pitches this less as audio losing ground to video podcasting and more a sign that audiences like to have a choice, especially with further data showing podcast consumers on YouTube.

still quite regularly consume those video podcasts primarily as an audio experience. Multicultural consumption continues to grow in podcasting's audience as well. 55% of Americans 18 plus on average consume podcasts at least monthly. Despite the white dude bro image one might find in Saturday Night Live skits, white audiences technically are bringing down the overall average now.

as white respondents only clock in at 52% total monthly podcast consumption. Let's compare that to some other demographics. For Hispanic Americans, it's 65%. For black audiences, it's 62%. And for Asia-Pacific audiences, it's 66% tuning in monthly. A significant driver for growth in podcasting over the past year has been multicultural audiences.

and the growth of video. Earlier this week, teasing data from the report, Tom Webster zoomed in on a specific slide showing respondents' top 20 favorite podcasts. Last year, the Joe Rogan experience was at the top with 13% of respondents. who've ever listened to a podcast. This year, the Joe Rogan experience has slipped down to 11%. Here's a quote from Rebster's article.

on Wednesday quote week to week in the various charts that track downloads and listening. We can see other podcasts like diary of a CEO nipping at the heels of Rogan. And this is just another sign that the previously impenetrable moat around the popularity of the Joe.

Rogan experience might be showing some signs of weakness. Some of that might also be down to the current political climate, which also might explain a couple of last year's top 20 shows, for example, Ben Shapiro and Dan Bongino shows. falling off of this year's list, end quote. A detail that stands out is back in 2024, Rogan had an 11 percentage point lead over the podcast in second place.

In 2025, in addition to me just dropping those glasses I mentioned earlier, that lead has now shrunk down to 7 percentage points. Webster proposes this is a sign of the continued health and maturity of podcasting. Audiences want choice and they're finding it more as the field grows. Live shows are more and more of a growing concern.

Madison Square Garden has had multiple sold-out podcast live shows this year alone, including the annual Kill Tony performances that have sold out twice in a row now, and Dropout's much-hyped Dimension 20 live show back in Q1. Podcasts are now such a big deal that Madison Square Garden's parent corporation changed the Madison Square Garden event calendar so that in the dropdown where one sorts the event schedule.

One of the buttons is now concerts, comedy shows, and podcast shows. Here's a quote from the article by Ashley Carman. This piece is about, quote, Sam Harris is going on a small tour this fall, including stops in New York and Chicago. His Beacon Theater date appears to be mostly sold out with resale tickets starting around $150. Relationship therapist Esther Perel toured the U.S. last year over eight dates. Alex Cooper just announced a two-day Las Vegas event.

Weekend packages cost $300 per person. Just three of her West Coast shows last year grossed $540,000 with 9,549 tickets sold, according to Polestar. End quote. Speaking of that Polestar survey, Kill Tony reportedly raked in $11 million in live show tours over the past year. Live shows have been a part of podcasting since the early years, but the medium's growing mainstream appeal...

has also evolved some of the biggest performances, with simple radio play style recordings of podcasts being supplemented with stylish performances and big budget spectacles. Where else can one find pyrotechnics during a game? of Dungeons and Dragons. Nielsen's media distributor Gage report finds that for the sixth consecutive month in a row, YouTube has been the top media distributor. capturing 13.4% of TV viewing, followed by Disney's 9.4% and Netflix's 8.8% throughout July.

The usual boost to streaming from summer break in the northern hemisphere boosted Netflix and the Roku channel stats to new peaks. Amazon got quite close to getting to their best ever share of platform, which was 4% back in December 2024. with this July scoring 3.9%. Speaking of July boost, here's a fun one with a quote from the article, quote, Hallmark climbed 1.1% of TV and moved up a slot in the rankings among distributors.

Hallmark was boosted by its annual Christmas in July programming on the Hallmark Channel, where new premieres, including a four-part unwrapping Christmas movie and holiday series, Holidays and Christmas at Sea specifically resulted in a 19% viewership bump for the network, end quote. While looking ahead, Nielsen anticipates the seasonal shift from summer to fall will start to kick in soon.

with major sports and new broadcast seasons kicking off, which will have a knock-on effect for media distributors and audiences.

While September may be in full swing, I'm going to take a quick second to look forward to October and list out what Sounds Profitable is going to be hosting this year at Advertising Week New York. On October 6th and 7th, the Podcast Zone returns for networking opportunities and panels, including Tom Webster debuting some new data at some point. Sounds Profitable partners can still grab tickets to Advertising Week New York at a steep discount.

And I'm not kidding when I say steep, I mean like over 70% off steep. So get in touch with Brian or, you know, the contact us form if you're interested. In addition to that, on October 7th, YMH and Sounds Profitable are once again going to be taking over a New York City comedy club to host a night of podcasting comedy, which is a literal thing. We will be having podcasting.

comics, come up, do stand-up, all that good fun stuff. While the Podcast Zone stage is already booked solid, there are some limited sponsorship opportunities still available for both the Podcast Zone and the Night of Podcast Comedy. which again, you can get in touch to learn more. Finally, it's time for my quick hits. These are articles from throughout the week that didn't quite make top story coverage today because there's only so much space I can fit all this stuff in.

I still argue these things are worth including in your weekend reading. So let's look back at the week. First up, the podcast study has a series of webinars coming up in this month and early October. starting with a presentation on deepening loyalty and engagement with existing podcast audiences that will start Thursday, September 11th at 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

The Podglomerate and New York Festivals and Radio Awards are presenting a free webinar on October 1st at 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time titled From Script to Success, Production Secrets. from trophy-winning podcasts that will feature production crew from NPR, CBC, and the Boston Globe. Adam Bowie has a new piece looking at Edison Research's quarterly Top 25 Podcasts in the UK.

which now includes audience members who only consume podcasts as video. The Wall Street Journal has a new piece about the so-called podcast gold rush of mainstream media entities signing podcast personalities. And finally, Quill and Right Side Up have teamed up to publish a new guide called Branded Podcasts vs. Podcast Advertising. What's right for your brand?

That was the download brought to you by Sounds Profitable. I know I go through today's stories fast, so be sure to check out the links to everything I talked about using the handy dandy link in your show notes, which will take you right to the Sounds Profitable page for today's episode.

Or if you want to do it yourself, I get it. I'm an Android user, DIY. Go to soundsforoffitable.com, mouse over to the download section, and you can find all the episodes of the download there. Or you could subscribe to get the next issues. in your email inbox as a newsletter. For Sounds Profitable, I'm Gavin Gaddis. Our producers are myself, Tom Webster, and Brian Barletta. And as usual, a special thanks to you for sticking with me as I brought you the top stories from this week.

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