At-Home Listening Keeps Climbing
Edison's Podcast Consumer 2026 shows at-home listening climbing year after year, and it's changing where, and how, brands reach their audience.
Podcasts are well known for keeping listeners company on the move, but the medium's reach has expanded. Two-thirds of weekly podcast listeners now do most of their listening at home. A growing audience, changing daily routines, and new technology all play a part.
In 2019, Edison reported 48% of weekly podcast consumers said they listened most often at home. A year later that figure jumped to 58% as the pandemic emptied the roads, and it has held in the 60s every year since.
In The Podcast Consumer 2026, Edison asked U.S. weekly podcast consumers (age 13 and up) where they listen most often:
- 2024: 61% listen at home most often
- 2025: 64%
- Q1 2026: 66%
The places we used to associate with podcasting are flat or fading. Listening in a vehicle eased from 14% to 13% over the same period, at work slipped from 9% to 7%, and walking around settled at 7%. As those everyday-elsewhere moments held steady or shrank, home absorbed the difference.
So what changed?
Let's start with the audience. Podcast reach is at a record high. 80% of Americans 12 and up have now listened to or watched a podcast, and 58% do so monthly, an estimated 167 million people, up from 158 million a year ago. Weekly consumption climbed even faster, from 115 million to 130 million.
That growth is not concentrated in one age group. Monthly consumption now runs 64% among those 12 to 34, 68% among those 35 to 54, and 44% among those 55 and up. The 55-plus group has more than doubled since 2023, when it sat at 21%. As podcasting broadens past its early base and into older audiences, more of that listening settles into the places people spend the most time.
Then there are the routines. Before 2020, Americans did roughly 7% of their paid workdays from home. Today it 's closer to a quarter and holding steady. With more people at home during the day, there are more opportunities for listening.
And probably the largest force of the three; technology. Video is reshaping how people find and play shows. YouTube is now the most-used service for podcasts among weekly consumers at 37%, up from 31% two years ago.
This rise has come at the expense of the audio-first apps that used to lead: over the same period Spotify slipped from 28% to 21% and Apple Podcasts from 14% to 12%. In Q3 2025, for the first time in Edison Podcast Metrics, more people consumed video podcasts than audio-only ones. The two now run nearly even, with 80% of weekly consumers listening to audio-only podcasts and 78% watching ones with video. During Edison's Podcast Consumer Report 2026 webinar held on June 3, presenter Megan Lazik called these shifts in listener behaviour a milestone in how the medium is evolving and tied it directly to the rise in listening at home.
You can hear a podcast anywhere, but for many of us watching one comfortably means being somewhere with a screen. Three-quarters of Americans now own a smart TV, and more than half of podcast users have 'listened' to a podcast on one.
The Takeaway
The shift in where people listen changes the context in which they hear your ad, and context is everything in podcast advertising. When listening happens at home, with a screen in view, a brand can tap into additional creative avenues: on-screen product shots, demos, and visual calls to action that help drive the messaging behind the ad.
The podcast audience is bigger than ever, more engaged than ever, and increasingly gathered at home, where the listening happens on smart speakers, phones, and screens alike. BUT the trusted voice of the host still does the heavy lifting, on audio and video both. What's new is the range of ways to reach that audience, wherever they are.
About The Data
This article draws on Edison Research's The Podcast Consumer 2026, an annual study of how, where, and how often Americans listen to podcasts. Additional figures come from Edison's Infinite Dial 2026 and Edison Podcast Metrics. Edison Research, part of SSRS, is one of the longest-running and most widely cited sources of podcast and audio measurement in the United States.
Sherry Del Rizzo
Sherry leads editorial at ADOPTER Media, translating the agency's campaign experience and podcast advertising expertise into education for the industry. Her job, in short: take what ADOPTER learns from running real campaigns and turn it into something worth reading.
