Podcasts are increasingly making the leap to TV — and 2026 will be a significant test of the format’s potential in the living room.
YouTube, already the top streaming TV service, has solidified its position as the No. 1 destination for podcasts, too. Forty percent of monthly listeners called it their most-used service, trouncing Spotify (18%) and Apple (11%), according to a June 2025 survey by Sounds Profitable and Signal Hill Insights.
Netflix is now looking to challenge YouTube with a slate of video podcasts set to roll out early this year. The streamer has at least 33 shows already in hand and has struck deals for the likes of Bill Simmons, Charlamagne Tha God’s “The Breakfast Club,” and several Barstool Sports offerings. Netflix has told potential partners it wants to have 50 to 75 shows at launch.
Fox also made a significant investment in 2025 in podcasts. It acquired Red Seat Ventures, which handles production and ad sales for conservative hosts including Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, and Bill O’Reilly. It also signed a deal that brings “Crime Junkie” parent Audiochuck’s shows to its free streamer, Tubi.
All this is encouraging to podcast insiders who love the prospect of seeing some competition for YouTube and more money flowing into the space. YouTube’s ascent spurred many audio hosts to create video versions of their shows and also drew more influencers to the format.
“We’re essentially an influencer medium,” Greg Glenday, the CEO of leading podcast company Acast, told Business Insider. Acast has been looking to position its hosts as creators to broaden their appeal to advertisers.
Research shows that the definition of a podcast has expanded. A quarter of people polled by the Sounds Profitable survey said they thought of podcasts as either audio or video, up from 21% in 2024.
“What began as an audio-only medium has become a visual-first content format, essentially the modern-day counterpart to certain types of television programming that can also live in audio,” Michael Calvin Jones, SVP of Wasserman Creators, recently told Business Insider.
However, it remains to be seen how successfully podcasts can make the transition to TV. Will they truly become the next generation’s version of a TV talk show? Some industry insiders think the potential for podcasts, which often consist of one or two people talking in a studio, to become a premium visual offering could be overstated.
Even YouTube’s rise could be, in some respects, misleading. Sounds Profitable’s survey found that a lot of people still use YouTube to listen to podcasts as well as watch them.
“The numbers are saying more and more are watching podcasts on YouTube, but it doesn’t mean they’re actually watching them,” said Adam McNeil, a podcast ad buyer at Adopter Media. “YouTube is important for discoverability, but is it still very much an audio-based medium? I would say it is.”
Whether video podcasts can grow the podcast listening pie, or, in the case of Netflix, juice engagement or subscribers, is also still TBD. In the case of Bill Simmons, Netflix is presenting his sports talk show live on Sundays starting January 11, giving it a shot at being appointment viewing.
“They’re not an acquisition lever like tentpole originals, breakout viral hits, or live sports,” said Nick Cicero, founder of measurement company Mondo Metrics. Video podcasts could get people to increase their time and frequency on the service, help retain them as subscribers, and serve niche audiences, he said.
Netflix’s approach is also a gamble for the hosts. The streamer is getting hosts to pull their video shows off YouTube in its quest for exclusivity. But top independent creators often want to distribute their shows as widely as possible and value the real-time performance data and fan interactivity they get on YouTube.
Podcasts have largely been a free, widely distributed medium, and being paywalled and exclusive to one platform has been the exception rather than the rule. Spotify tried to sew up top podcaster Joe Rogan and others, but moved away from exclusives after four years to maximize their distribution and ad sales.
Being on Netflix could expose hosts to a whole new set of viewers, but some industry insiders wonder if taking the shows off YouTube could mean losing fans who aren’t motivated enough to seek them out on a new platform.
“I think it’s a huge risk,” McNeil said.
