Sounds Profitable: Netflix Ranks Third Among Podcast Platforms

Sounds Profitable’s Podcast Landscape 2026 finds U.S. podcast reach holding steady while Netflix cracks the top three platforms in its first year carrying podcasts, the trade group’s core-numbers report and a Podnews press release dated Oct. 1 show.

From a census-weighted survey of 5,473 U.S. adults fielded in August, 74% of adults have ever consumed a podcast, 55% in the past month, and 39% in the past week — all within a point of 2025, Sounds Profitable writes. Asked which apps they used for podcasts in the past year, respondents put YouTube first (63%), Spotify second (33%), and Netflix third (21%), ahead of Apple Podcasts (15%).

Only about 5% named Netflix as their most-used podcast platform, Podnews’s release notes, underscoring that the service’s early footprint is broad sampling more than primary loyalty. Purpose-built podcast apps kept shrinking as the most-used choice, falling from 19% to 15% year over year, with Apple Podcasts most-used share dropping from 11% to 8%.

Video continued to grow inside the stable audience: 44% of consumers watched a video podcast in the past week, up from 40%, and the share who have never watched one fell from 14% to 10%. Only 17% of Americans still expect a podcast to be audio-only. Forty percent at least occasionally consume podcasts with other people, up from 37%.

Tom Webster’s write-up frames “stable” reach after two decades of growth as itself news, while flagging that more listening is happening inside multi-purpose apps and living-room screens. Additional Landscape 2026 installments, including AI findings, are promised later in the year.

For readers following industry research on Podcast News, verified as of Oct. 1 reports: reach is flat; Netflix ranks third by past-year use; video and co-viewing keep rising; podcast-native apps keep losing most-used share.