Ofcom has just published it’s annual Podcast Survey for 2025, alongside its wider Audio Survey.

Note: This summary is best viewed on a laptop, desktop or device with a large screen. It’s data heavy, and some of the charts may not render especially well on mobile devices.

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Ofcom Podcast Survey 2025

As in previous years, Ofcom’s Podcast Survey was conducted by Yonder, with fieldwork carried out between 6th and 16th March 2025. From the technical report:

The survey was conducted using Yonder’s online panel, reaching a 2,368 nationally representative sample which consisted of 506 non podcast users, 1,504 overall regular users and 358 occasional users. Regular podcast users were targeted via boost interviews (1,226 boost interviews) in order to reach a minimum of 1,500 regular users, overall.

Invitations to complete the survey were sent out on a nationally representative basis aligned to age, gender, region and social grade to ensure that we achieved a good demographic spread of respondents.

Yonder set quotas by age interlocked with gender, region and social grade. Any discrepancy between the final achieved sample and the known offline profile of the UK was adjusted by RIM weighting, using the known demographic profile of the population. Data was weighted using 6 different variables – age, gender, government office region, social grade, ethnicity and podcast usage.

Typically I begin with a summary of all audio listening types and the amount that people says they do each of these:

Note that I’m using Google Charts here, and if you can’t read a number, hover over it and it should be clear what number is being talked about. Also note that I’ve simplified the questions a little. The original questionnaire gives examples of each of these types of audio. For example “Music on video websites or apps for background listening” uses the example of YouTube.

So looking specifically at podcasts in the above chart, 50% ever listen to a podcast and 25% are regular (weekly) podcast listeners.

For reference “Social audio services” include Discord and Clubhouse (remember them?), while “Other types of audio content” include health/wellness/meditation apps and guided walking apps.

Looking at the demographics within that is revealing. As with last year, men are more likely than women to regularly listen to podcasts. Perhaps because of the make-up of podcast hosts in bigger podcasts? I don’t know.

The most likely demographic to listen to podcasts is 25-34s with 45% of them listening regularly. 18-24s seem to be too young to have really adopted them. That’s at odds with last year’s figures which showed the youngest group most likely to listen.

What continues to be clear is that the ABC1 socio-economic group is more likely than C2DEs to listen.

And Ethnic Minority groups are very likely to listen to podcasts with 41% of them doing so weekly. Note that this is the “NET” number across all ethnic groups as identified by respondents themselves in the survey. The sample gets quite small if you go too detailed, but I would note that amongst Black listeners, the percentage is 60%.

I’ve previously hypothesised that podcasting allows those who might feel under-represented in other forms of media to find podcast titles that speak to them more easily.

Note that the survey does not measure sexuality, so there’s no way to tell whether this is also true of the LGBTQ+ community. The survey does measure disability, but only 19% of disabled respondents said they listened to podcasts weekly compared with an average of 25%. I’d note that amongst those with vision disabilities, this rises to 33%.

Ofcom asks those who say that they used to listen to podcasts why they stopped listening. As in previous years the biggest reason people give for stopping listening to podcasts is that they can’t find any podcasts that interest them, with 35% of those stopping giving that as a reason.

I think many of us within podcasting might find that hard to fathom, but that feels like a discovery issue as much as anything.

Losing interest in podcasts is also given by many as a reason (34%), while 30% say that they don’t have enough time to listen to them.

Word of Mouth remains the most popular way to discover new podcasts with 34% of adults saying so. However, amongst younger 18-34 listeners, Social Media is vastly more important for podcast discovery with 63% saying that this is how they find new podcasts.

It’s also notable that older listeners just don’t hear about new podcasts, with 49% of 55+s saying that’s the case for them.

Social Media is also massively influential in discovery for ethnic minorities with 60% saying that ‘s what they use to find new podcast titles.

A new question this year asked those who had said that they heard about new podcasts on the radio, which station(s) they tended to hear about podcasts on.

It’s perhaps unsurprising that Radio 4 comes out top here, ahead of Radio 2 and Radio 1. The biggest commercial station to drive podcast listening is any Heart station (which is indeed, the biggest commercial network). The talkSPORT services do disproportionately well here too.

I would say from this that overall, the BBC is doing the best job (although it certainly has vastly more titles), then Global and News Broadcasting, with Bauer doing less well at driving podcast listening.

The chart below shows when people listen to podcasts:

This is measured slightly differently to the Edison figures which involve time spent with each place. This data breaks locations down in more detail but just measures the number of places rather than the duration in each place. Nevertheless, home comes out top.

I thought it may be interesting to compare this with music radio:

Suddenly, listening in the car is much bigger.

I also thought it might be interesting to see how 18-34s differed from all adults for podcast listening.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, public transport, and especially walking shoot up in popularity (as does school/college).

This year, the mean number of podcast episodes listened to in a given week is again 5 as it was last year. To be clear, that is not series but actual episodes of any podcasts.

Obviously, there is a lot of variation, and this data is only for those who listen regularly to podcasts (i.e. each week).

There is of course a long tail of 7% of listeners who listen to 11+ episodes a week. And the 11% who don’t know isn’t helpful.

And it’s not that the average changes enormously with demographic.

35-44s just about edge it as the demographic that listens to the most episodes. Even Ethnic Minorities only listen to 4.83 episodes on average. I would note that younger listeners have increased from last year.

I think this just goes to show that breaking into someone’s listening routine is hard. (There are also lots of other rival attractions for spending our time.)

The average number of podcast series that regular weekly podcast listeners subscribe/follow is 6.01. This is down slightly from 6.1 last year.

So they are subscribing to/following more feeds than the number of episodes they listen to might suggest.

35-44s subscribe to 7.6 feeds, while 18-24s subscribe to just 4.8 feeds.

The survey asks about podcast genres.

The order this year is broadly the same, although Entertainment and News and Current Affairs are tied for top spot this year which is new (Entertainment just led previously).

The data is comprehensive enough to dig into the demographics of every single genre should you want to look at it (and it might be worth your while). But a few notes from me:

• Comedy skews young. The All Adults figure is 46% for comedy, but for 18-24s it jumps to 54% and it’s 53% for 25-34s.
• Entertainment also skews young, with an all adult figure of 47% rising to 58% for 18-24s and 57% for 25-34s.
• Politics podcasts skew massively male, with 48% of men saying they listen weekly compared with just 27% of women.
• News and Current Affairs mirrors this, with 54% of men listening weekly compared with 36% of women.
• And while True Crime is slightly more female than male, it’s pretty close with 32% of women saying they listen weekly compared with 28% of men saying the same.

The survey measures platforms a couple of ways.

The first is to simply list the platforms people use. On average they mention 2.49 platforms.

Spotify comes out biggest overall with 48% (based on Spotify Premium and Spotify Free in addition to free trials). Then comes BBC Sounds with 41% followed by YouTube with 36%. Apple Podcasts has 20%.

I’d note that Google Podcasts is on this list even though it was sunset in June 2024 for UK listeners. So the 9% there is questionable for research carried out in March 2025. And there’s no distinction between YouTube and YouTube Music. While the latter is no doubt relatively small, it’s probably bigger than many of the other platforms on this list. I also know that Ofcom likes to keep the questionnaire consistent between years which may explain some of these options.

It’s worth noting that amongst 18-24s, Spotify jumps from 48% to 69%, and it’s at 56% amongst 25-34s. So Spotify is doing very well amongst the young. YouTube only jumps from 36% to 40% for 18-24s. Apple Podcasts’ biggest group is 35-44s where it reaches 25% (compared with 20% overall).

The survey then asks which platform listeners use most often. This brings the numbers down a bit for everyone.

Spotify still comes out on top with 29%, followed by YouTube with 19%, BBC Sounds with 16% and Apple Podcasts with 11%. (It’s fascinating to compare with the just-published Edison Research data which asks a very similar question and has Spotify on 33%, YouTube on 20%, BBC Sounds on 16% and Apple Podcasts on 10%. Incredibly close given the differing question and methodologies.)

Again, Spotify jumps to 45% for 18-24s, and 41% for 25-34s. YouTube on the other hand only goes from 19% to 20% for 18-24s, and actually falls to 15% for 25-34s.

Overall, the mean number of platforms used is 2.6 (down a bit from 3 last year), although somehow, 2% of regular weekly podcast listeners are using 11+ platforms! Kudos to them.

Ofcom also asks about what’s important to podcast app users when accessing podcasts.

There’s nothing too surprising here. Listeners want quality podcasts, an easy to use app that they can navigate. They like free, and they want a range of podcasts.

It’s interesting that recommendations or personalisation are relatively mid-table on the list. And it doesn’t look like many people are after more push notifications…

For those who operate one of the platforms listed above, there is a wealth of tables measuring each of the above features by each platform. That’s tens of thousands of lines in an Excel doc. Have fun!

As the media’s regulator, Ofcom is specifically interested in podcasts that are related to the media like TV, radio and newspapers.

Another new question this year was about video podcasts and people’s preferences. This question was asked of those who listen to Podcasts that also have videos.

The biggest group here are the audio lovers, but there are plenty who’d prefer to see a video version if available, and a good number who’ll put the video on in the background.

My view is that this needs a more detailed look at before anyone draws any massive conclusions. And even amongst the youngest 18-24 year olds, that 29% only jumps to 33%.

Here’s Ofcom’s own infographic based on the same question as it appears in the Audio Report.

Finally in this section, Ofcom asked a number of statements. The chart below shows those who either Strongly or Slightly Agree with each statement.

I would note that only 50% agree with the statement “I trust what I hear in podcasts” which I would suggest is slightly worrying. 45% say that there are too many adverts. But only 22% are worried about finding content in podcasts offensive or upsetting.

One final table published by Ofcom in their Audio Report is this interesting one that breaks down the top 10 podcast in the UK by different demographics based on Edison Research data (Q2 2024 – Q1 2025 averaged).

What I find interesting about this is that it shows how much titles like Joe Rogan and The Diary of a CEO appeal to younger listeners whilst not showing up at all on the 55+ charts (Joe Rogan is 57; Steven Bartlett is 32).

A reminder that the data tables all of this is based on are available on Ofcom’s website. It’s a very large spreadsheet I should warn you!

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Ofcom Audio Report 2025

Before getting deeper into podcasts, I’ll look at Ofcom’s Audio Report detailing how people are listening to wider audio. The below diagram shows the breakdown between different forms of audio:

Interestingly, they show Music Radio and Online Music Services (e.g. Spotify, Apple Music) to be almost the same in terms of reach at 62% for Music Radio and 61% for Online Music Services.

I do find Store Digital Music to be very high at 41%. Are people really listening to mp3s on their phones that much? (In the questionnaire, the option is “Your personal music you have stored on a digital device (e.g. on a smartphone, mp3 player)”, but I can’t help thinking that some respondents have misinterpreted that and are thinking of streaming music services like Spotify. And of course, you can “download” music from streaming services for offline listening. But those files are encrypted. So be wary of how you interpret this particular data point.

Ofcom notes that listening does vary significantly by age:

Younger listeners are much more likely to use Online Music Services, whereas with 55+’s, it’s Music Radio that leads the pack.

It’s worth noting that Ofcom measured multiple forms of audio beyond those shown above. Here’s a chart of all the audio formats that they measured.

INCLUDE CHART SHOWING ALL THE AUDIO TYPES – WEEKLY LISTENING

Ofcom has dived into RAJAR data to show the changes in radio platform listening over time, and I think the chart is pretty illuminating – especially the decline of AM/FM listening, and the growth of smart speaker listening:

They also looked at overall weekly reach by audio service. Now, we do need to be careful here, because different surveys ask this question differently. This is also a reach figure and not a time spent listening number. Those are not necessarily the same thing.

The survey also charted the individual apps that all adults and specifically 16-24s used to listen to various types of audio.

Some interesting points here are that for radio, BBC Sounds and Global Player do well. I’m a little uncertain about Spotify being so high up the list, since AFAIK there’s no live “radio” as such on the platform. But you can of course get an algorithmically delivered playlist very easily which, I guess, is radio adjacent?

Spotify rules the roost for Online Music, followed by YouTube. Apple Music is quite distant. For Podcasts it’s Spotify and YouTube, followed by BBC Sounds and only then Apple Podcasts.

Spotify has made some serious gains on Audible’s lead in Audiobooks. Although, again, I’m unclear who’s using YouTube to listen to audiobooks. Is there a deep well of pirated audiobooks hidden away on YouTube that I’m not aware of?

In car listening is interesting.

But note that this is RAJAR data. All audio in the car is also interesting.

This is based on some separate IPA Touchpoints research and shows how radio fits in with other forms of audio in-car.

The full Audio Report is available on Ofcom’s website.

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All data collated by Yonder on behalf of Ofcom. 

Disclaimer: These are my views alone and do not represent those of anyone else, including my employer. Any errors or omissions are mine. Please let me know if you find any mistakes (I hope there aren’t any!)

I’ve written about the Ofcom Podcast Survey since 2021. Read about previous surveys below.

2024 Ofcom Podcast Survey | 2023 Ofcom Podcast Survey | 2022 Ofcom Podcast Survey | 2021 Ofcom Podcast Survey