As podcast audiences embrace video, publishers shift their strategy towards personality-led shows and hybrid revenue

• A new report from the Reuters Institute shows the rapidly changing nature of news podcasts, with publishers pivoting to video as a response to audience demand and new platform features.
• The report, based on a mixture of audience research and interviews with media managers, suggests this is an uneven shift, with some publishers creating multi-modal versions of all their shows and others converting only chat formats to video and keeping narrative shows as audio-only productions.
• Qualitative research shows that video podcasting audiences mostly overlap with audio ones, suggesting the same people access them in different contexts. But video is also reaching new audiences with different expectations, and this creates dilemmas for publishers in terms of distribution and monetisation.
• While big titles (New York Times, The Economist and Die Zeit) are launching audio-only subscriptions, podcast-focused companies such as Chora Media and Goalhanger are adopting a flywheel approach, making money with events, merchandise, and bonus content to overcome resistance to pay.

These are some of the findings from The Changing shape and new economics of news podcasting, a report authored by Nic Newman, published by the Reuters Institute.

The report provides a valuable snapshot at a momentous time for the news industry, with audio podcasts are being transformed into video ones, personality-driven chat shows squeezing out more traditional narrative series, and business models changing, with some shows going behind paywalls. It explores how audiences feel about these changes and how publishers are responding to them.

The report draws on qualitative audience research conducted in the US, the UK and Norway. It is also based on interviews with leading news publishers such as the New York Times, the Guardian, The Economist, Schibsted, Bonnier and Die Zeit, as well as podcast-first companies Goalhanger and Chora Media. You can get a free copy of the report here.

Here are the key findings:

1. Production is shifting towards conversational podcasts

Publishers are producing fewer documentary-style series and more conversational shows, especially in the US. The narrative boom that began with Serial in 2014 led to a wave of investment in podcast studios. But monetisation proved weaker than expected, and platforms such as Spotify, which had partly funded the boom, cut back and production has largely shifted into cheaper conversational podcasts. Podcasts have also become more reactive to major news events, with companies releasing emergency episodes to fulfil audience demand.

New platform features are accelerating these changes. Spotify, YouTube, Netflix and others see podcasts as an opportunity to grow their business and have invested in new content. Discovery mechanisms have been supercharged and platforms such as Apple and Spotify now also offer different routes to monetisation, including subscriptions. But that’s not the whole story. Podcast-only start-ups such as Podimo and Podme have become a key feature of some European markets, stimulating the market for paid content, while some publishers have invested in their own apps.

2. Platforms are fuelling the pivot to video

These platform changes are accelerating the shift towards conversational and video-first podcasts. Spotify pioneered video podcasts in 2020 for a few limited shows, partly as a defensive move against YouTube. By 2024 there were over 250,000 video podcasts on its platform and half of the top 20 shows, including the Joe Rogan Experience and Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy, are now available in video. In February 2026 Apple announced it would be supporting video formats for the first time, allowing users to switch seamlessly between audio and video. Platforms see podcasts as a cheap way of driving usage through connected televisions, enabling them to compete meaningfully with streaming services such as Netflix.

Nic Newman, Senior Research Associate and author of the report, said:

“Video is no longer an optional extra for podcasting – it’s becoming central to how shows are discovered, distributed, and monetised. But that doesn’t mean audio disappears; it means publishers have to think much more carefully about what each format is for.”

3. This shift to video is also fuelled by audience demand

Younger audiences are used to watching online video and prefer to consume podcasts through the screen. These generations have grown up with networks such as YouTube and TikTok, and many say they prefer to take in information this way. But context matters too. At home, many people who already use YouTube heavily or have access to connected televisions tend to default to video, but they also consume audio while driving, exercising or cooking.

Most of the respondents we surveyed are more attracted to video for non-news-related podcasts such as comedy, fashion, or entertainment. This chimes with the experience of UK podcast-first company Goalhanger. Around 10-15% of YouTube consumption of The Rest is Politics, a show with a strong audio heritage, is in video. This contrasts with The Rest is Science, which reaches 60–70% and is presented by Michael Stevens, a creator who cut his teeth on YouTube.

4. Publishers are embracing video (with some caution)

Video is reshaping discovery, production, and editorial strategies in news podcasting. Even though the economics and audience behaviours differ across markets, publishers are embracing video for three reasons: as a tool to reach entirely new audiences on video-led platforms; as a way to build loyalty and deepen the parasocial relationship between hosts and their audience; and as a way to tap into growing video advertising budgets and show their content on connected TV sets.

The report provides a deep dive into the podcast strategies of a dozen of major publishers in Europe and the US. Some worry about the extra costs involved and think video could distort (or even destroy) the artisanal craft of audio podcasting. The shift to video is also forcing organisational change inside newsrooms. Audio teams, video teams, and social media teams used to operate separately. Now video podcasts are blurring these boundaries as a show can generate multiple outputs: a full podcast episode, a video version, short clips for social media, and written articles. This requires new workflows, new skills, and new structures.

5. Publishers are thinking beyond advertising

Most of the respondents we surveyed say they are reluctant to pay for podcasts. They don’t see the point in doing so, with so many free options available, even though they value news podcasts highly. Several respondents said they would simply switch to another podcast if their favourite show introduced a paywall. At the same time, audiences are more open to indirect forms of monetisation, such as donations or paying to attend live shows.

While advertising remains central, podcasting is moving towards hybrid business models. Podcast-first companies such as Italy’s Chora Media and UK’s Goalhanger are the best examples of this approach, with monetisation coming from advertising, live events, merchandise, and membership programmes. Goalhanger, for example, hires popular hosts in key verticals, and to build ‘fandoms’ around them. For these newer entrants, a podcast is only one expression of a wider ‘show’ built around talent and community, with revenues flowing from multiple streams.

Our methodology

The report is based on three different sources: semi-structured interviews with six experts and sixteen media managers from Europe and the US conducted in March 2026; a project of qualitative research conducted in February 2025 in the US, the UK and Norway; and survey data from the 2025 Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report.

The qualitative project, conducted by the market research company Differentology, aimed to understand the nature and context of podcast consumption, and the motivations for use, in three countries with high and mature levels of usage that have also seen significant experimentation around business models. We designed the research to uncover insights around the three key themes of this report: the growing role of personalities, the greater prevalence of video, and public attitudes towards payment and subscription. We ran a 50-person online community of regular news podcast users (20 in the US, 18 in the UK, and 12 in Norway) where we set various tasks. We followed this with mini-groups drawn from a subset of these users to further explore issues in greater depth.

The report includes quantitative data from the Digital News Report, an annual online survey of news use conducted by YouGov. Details of the methodology for this survey can be found here.

Contact and more information

For more information, interview requests or a copy of the report, please contact Eduardo Suárez at eduardo.suarez@politics.ox.ac.uk or Matthew Leake at matthew.leake@politics.ox.ac.uk.

About the author

Nic Newman is Senior Research Associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, where was lead author of the annual Digital News Report between 2012 and 2025. He is also a consultant on digital media, working actively with news companies on product, audience, and business strategies. He has produced a media and journalism predictions report for almost twenty years. This is the tenth to be published by the Reuters Institute. Nic was a founding member of the BBC News website, leading international coverage as World Editor (1997-2001). As Head of Product Development (2001-10) he led digital teams, developing websites, mobile, and interactive TV applications for all BBC Journalism sites.

About the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism

The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism is dedicated to exploring the future of journalism worldwide. The Institute receives core funding from the Thomson Reuters Foundation and is based in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford. It was launched in November 2006 and developed from the Reuters Journalist Fellowship Programme, established at Oxford four decades ago. In addition to the fellowship programme for mid-career journalists from around the world, the Institute hosts leadership development programmes and research projects focused on the future of journalism. See https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/

Funding acknowledgement

This piece of research was supported by Google as part of its Global News Initiative.