Podcast consumption goes gangbusters in the US: The Infinite Dial report

What is a podcast?

It seems a simple enough question, but the definition is no longer as clear cut as we might think.

In 2025, the key difference now is that we no longer merely listen to podcasts. We consume them.

This distinction was certainly made clear in the latest Edison Research The Infinite Dial report, which found the popularity of podcasts has gone gangbusters in the United States.

Not only has podcast consumption in the US reached a record high, video integration via platforms such as YouTube continues to expand its reach, with 55% of Americans aged 12 and over now monthly podcast consumers.

Presented by Edison Research Vice President Megan Lazovick, alongside radio futurologist and PodNews Editor James Cridland, the report found 73% of Americans over the age of 12 have consumed a podcast in either audio or video format.

This represents an estimated 210 million people.

Other key findings include:

70% of Americans age 12+ have listened to a podcast.

51% of Americans age 12+ have watched a podcast.

48% of Americans age 12+ have both listened to and watched a podcast.

A strong male video podcast audience drives higher monthly podcast consumption among men (57%) compared to women (52%).

YouTube is the service used most often to listen to podcasts with 33% of U.S. weekly podcast listeners using the service.

As Lazovick (pictured above) observed: “The reality is that the overwhelming majority of people who watch podcasts will say that they are podcast listeners.”

“But as more people discover the platform via video, it’s smart to think about it as consumption instead of just listening.”

“That is not intended at all to undercut the magic of audio-only content. There’s room for both video and audio in the world of podcasts.”

Cridland (pictured above) himself posed the “What is a podcast?” question back in 2021.

This time around – for Infinite Dial 2025 – he rephrased the question, careful to ask whether people had watched – as opposed to listened – to a podcast.

“It discovered another 8 million Americans who have consumed what they consider to be a podcast,” Cridland said in his blog this month.

Cridland – who’s in Chicago this week for the Podcast Movement Evolutions event – notes that in Europe or Australia, where radio has a multi-platform definition, it continues to grow – both in revenue and audience.

“We should resist any efforts to narrow the definition of ‘podcast,’ lest we copy the US radio industry, and define ourselves into irrelevance.”