News brief
Netflix passes Apple Podcasts as the third-biggest podcast platform in 2026
The Podcast Landscape 2026 ranks YouTube first, Spotify second and Netflix third for podcast consumption — ahead of Apple Podcasts — raising warnings from Tom Webster about a true walled garden.
By Sounds Profitable · Published · Announcement date
Tom Webster of Sounds Profitable, expanding on his Podcast Movement NYC keynote in the September 24 edition of The Download, shared new findings from The Podcast Landscape 2026: when respondents were asked where they had consumed a podcast in the past year, YouTube came first, Spotify a distant second — and Netflix jumped ahead of Apple Podcasts to take third place.
Webster's warning is the story's sharp edge. For all the criticism of YouTube and Spotify as walled gardens, Netflix "actually is a walled garden," he writes. Most shows cannot get on it at all, and those that do enter an ecosystem infamous for cancelling projects early if they don't immediately turn a profit. "We are potentially making a deal with the devil when we put our programming on Netflix," he writes, urging creators to focus on the platforms where they actually matter.
A sourcing caveat: this brief draws on Webster's own write-up of his keynote and research summary; the underlying survey methodology was not independently verified here, and the ranking describes respondents in The Podcast Landscape 2026 panel rather than the global listening population.
Announcement date: September 24, 2026
Sources
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