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Sounds Profitable: The Podcast Landscape 2026 — Netflix debuts as the #3 podcast platform
Sounds Profitable's annual census-weighted study of 5,473 U.S. adults finds podcast reach steady (74% ever, 55% monthly, 39% weekly) and Netflix debuting as the third-most-used podcast platform at 21%, behind YouTube (63%) and Spotify (33%) but ahead of Apple Podcasts (15%).
By Sounds Profitable · Published · Announcement date
Sounds Profitable released Part One of The Podcast Landscape 2026 on October 1, 2026, its annual census-weighted survey of U.S. podcast consumption, fielded in August 2026 with 5,473 adult respondents. Overall reach held essentially flat year over year: 74% of U.S. adults have ever consumed a podcast, 55% did so in the past month, and 39% in the past week — each within a point of 2025.
The headline shift is platform composition. In its first year carrying podcasts, Netflix was used by 21% of podcast consumers in the past 12 months — making it the third-ranked platform behind YouTube (63%) and Spotify (33%), and ahead of Apple Podcasts (15%). But usage and primacy differ: only 5% of podcast consumers call Netflix their main platform, versus 40% for YouTube. Podcast-native apps lost ground as the most-used platform, falling from 19% to 15% (Apple Podcasts' share of main-platform usage fell from 11% to 8%). Video kept climbing: 44% of podcast consumers watched a video podcast in the past week, up from 40% a year earlier.
Announcement date: October 1, 2026. Figures per Sounds Profitable's published report of the study's first part; methodology (census-weighted, n=5,473, August 2026 fielding) per the publisher.
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