Understanding the Podcast Landscape: Why Gen Z is Still Tuning In

Hello, good morning, you beautiful people. Welcome to another edition of the Independent Creator Podcast. That's right. We're still going. We're still doing this thing. So what we're going to do today is actually break down a couple of different things. We're going to change the format a little bit, not much. We're just going to take a look at podcast statistics. We're going to be very analytical on this episode.

We're getting into the numbers and everything that is part of the spreadsheets and all sorts of stuff and pie charts. But not really. We're not going to get too deep. We're just going to look into what is making podcasts actually still a viable option for listening to or actually watching, as right now you're probably doing both or one or the other on this particular episode.

Gen Z is Still Here for Podcasts

Let's actually look into what's happening, especially for Gen Z. Gen Z is still, you know, being a much younger audience than typically for like my generation and older, but they're still listening to a lot of podcasts, which is pretty amazing and pretty powerful. This particular generation is still utilizing or using podcasts as a form to gather information, be entertained, you know, just still looking at podcasts as a viable art form for us, which is a great thing.

I have pulled up something from a couple days ago. This is from the podcast industry statistics 2025, last updated back on March 13th from podcastindustry.org. On the chart here, people within Gen Z listen to podcasts via Spotify at least 55.9 percent. That is a massive amount of people listening to podcasts when you would think, you know, podcasts as a whole would be dying off because of short form content like TikTok and YouTube shorts and Instagram reels.

But that's really not the case for my generation and Gen Z. I don't know about Gen Alpha. I don't know. They're probably still too young. They're the ones that are driving the TikTok craze, driving those numbers to remain high. But for most folks, they still listen to podcasts via Spotify.

Spotify's Dominance and What It Means

As you can see here, YouTube is commanding a good portion at 20.6 percent. My understanding is that YouTube has been gaining a lot of ground and they've been pushing for a lot of things for people to listen to podcasts, especially through YouTube Music, that arm of YouTube. And video podcasting is also climbing as well. Like if you're watching this episode right now on YouTube, you are part of the people who watch podcast episodes via YouTube, which thank you for continuing to watch.

It's interesting to see that Spotify commands a huge amount here. I don't know if it's because of the knock on effect from like them signing Joe Rogan and some other big celebrity podcast hosts, whatever the reason why Spotify is almost at like over 55 percent of the listenership when you get Apple Podcasts at nine, just under 10 percent, and you get Pocket Casts, others, and TikTok, and the small little slivers here and there.

It's interesting to see that Spotify has this amount of listenership using the service to listen to podcasts. And is it a good thing or is it a bad thing? It's something that, you know, many people would say that Spotify is kind of gentrifying podcasting as a whole where it's locking in the user experience. Let's take a podcast show like Joe Rogan or one of the other ones that Call Her Daddy or some other shows that are exclusively to Spotify that you won't be able to use or you won't be able to listen to them via Pocket Casts or via the RSS feed that you can plug into Apple Podcasts or anywhere or another podcast player.

The Exclusive Content Dilemma

That's the thing. Is this cresting that hill where all of these exclusive shows can only be heard and sometimes seen because they have been breaking into providing a video portion of the podcast listening and viewing experience on Spotify? But the thing is, is it too much? Is Spotify trying to break into this market or control this market? Say, if you want to have a successful podcast show, you can only be on Spotify because that's where people are going to or listening to via our platform.

And I have to say that, you know, it's kind of frustrating when you look at this chart and you can see that it's over half of podcast listeners are using Spotify when there's many other platforms like players that are more than capable of providing you the same level without the exclusivity of staying on Spotify.

Looking at going through this little report here, frequent podcast listeners, the majority is on Spotify. Apple Podcasts is 10 percent less at 25 percent. And of course we got the SiriusXM-owned platforms. And then you go from Wondery, iHeartMedia, and a little bit further down. The online brand used most often is Spotify within the age range of 12 to 34. That's a big bracket, OK. 35 to 54, it's kind of neck and neck between YouTube Music and Spotify.

So it's kind of interesting to see the generational makeup or the age range demographics to see who mostly uses Spotify. It's the 12 to 34 range. Now, is that going to continue once they age out of this bracket into 35 to 54? Is it going to change where they were listening to Spotify? Is that going to be, let's say within another 10 to 15 years? Who knows the makeup of how Spotify will be then.

The Rise of Video Podcasting

YouTube, like I mentioned before, they've been making some inroads and trying to get more people to use the YouTube podcast feature, both video and audio. Video podcasting has started growing more and more. A lot of times people were saying, yeah, just start your podcast, audio format, and just post it out everywhere, like Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Overcast, all the distribution models that are out there.

And now the gurus are saying that it is more of a better idea to still be doing the audio product as well, but also include video into the whole mix as like an add-on bonus. Because especially if you're putting on YouTube, you have access to a wider audience. There's what, five billion potential eyeballs that are able to see your video. And depending on what niche or topic that your show, your podcast is about, it has a larger form of getting people to see it with the video format as well.

Should You Add Video to Your Podcast?

That's the thing. If I wanted to create a podcast, do I just focus on audio? Well, sure, you can still focus on that, but you also want to add in the video portion as well. And now I understand most people don't want to have the video part. They don't feel comfortable talking into a camera. And that's perfectly fine. You don't have to have a video portion or video side of your podcast because you're still getting the audio format out there. As long as you have good audio, that's pretty much all you really need.

To think about it, you can probably get a wider audience because most of the time people are listening to your show or your episodes passively by either listening in the car as they drive into work or going about their day or doing chores or having you up on the TV. Because I have noticed that not a lot but I'd say a growing audience participation or audience viewing is via the TV, especially for YouTube.

It's interesting to see that more and more people are using their TV as a basis for listening or viewing your content, especially for a podcast, because you can easily have it on TV, have it going as you're doing like chores, washing dishes, vacuuming, folding clothes, whatever, or just have it there as you're reading a book and just have it on just listening to it while it's passively on a TV.

The Power of Passive Consumption

But you can also do that through your phone or your stereo speakers if it's Bluetooth enabled. Podcasting is a very passively used medium to listen to. I don't know if I was getting my words there right or not, but anyways, you can passively listen to a show. And that's what I believe most people are consuming your show in that manner.

Now, there are people that would sit here and actively watch, like engaging and watching or listening to every single thing that you say. And that's perfectly fine because people are still consuming your content. And that's what you really want is to get your content out there for people, your audience to listen to, to start engaging with your content and all your episodes. And whether it's video or if it's audio, it doesn't really matter. What matters the most is that you are creating the content for your audience.

Whether it's through Spotify or any other number of players or YouTube, it's just getting the content out there. And that's a great thing.

A Message to Gen Z Listeners

So I wanted to take some time in this episode to look at the Spotify active listeners, especially for Gen Z. I believe that is a new audience that are coming into learning about different things, say like podcast creation or content creation as a whole or gardening. It's just this whole new generation is coming into it, looking for your content, and how you provide it is very important.

So if you are part of Generation Z and you actively listen to our podcast, this podcast, I would love to get your comments. Leave a five star rating and everything like that, especially if you're listening on Spotify. Definitely let me know in the comments because you can leave a comment on Spotify and also on YouTube or anywhere else. But if you're also on Apple Podcasts, five star reviews are much appreciated.

So with that, I want to say thank you for listening and I'll see you on the next one. Until next time, later taters.

The Independent Creator