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A stat has been doing the rounds in podcasting circles this year: only 10 of the top 200 podcasts have video. It's a comforting number if you've been skeptical of the video push, and an alarming one if you just spent real budget building a studio.
It's also, as it turns out, not really telling you what you think it's telling you.
The “10 of 200” figure comes from a specific, narrow read of the data: how many of Apple Podcasts' current U.S. Top 200 shows offer video specifically through Apple Podcasts. Apple has only been pushing video on its own platform for a relatively short time, so adoption there is still early — and likely to rise. Treating that as a stand-in for “how many top podcasts have video, full stop” skips over the platform where most video podcast consumption actually happens: YouTube.
It's a useful reminder before you repeat any stat in a client conversation: check what it's actually counting, not just what the headline implies.
Edison Research's Podcast Metrics Top 50 — built from survey data about what shows people are actually consuming, rather than one platform's internal adoption numbers — tells a very different story. Checking each show in the current Top 50 for full-episode video, using YouTube as the baseline, 84% of them now publish video.
84% of Edison Research's Top 50 US podcasts now publish full-episode video. Different charts, same takeaway: most top podcasts have video.
That's not a handful of breakout shows experimenting with a camera. That's the market baseline.
Only six shows in the current Edison Top 50 are genuinely audio-only:
Most come from public radio. Two more sit right at the margin — Fresh Air records one interview a week for YouTube but not the full feed, and SmartLess has a YouTube presence built on clips and post-show chat rather than complete episodes.
These are highly produced, narrative- or interview-driven shows where video may genuinely not add much to the listening experience — and that's the more useful way to read the data than “audio is dying.” The real dividing line isn't between podcasters who believe in video and those who don't. It's between shows where video adds something for the listener, and shows where it might not.
Most shows, it turns out, land on the video side of that line.
This isn't an isolated read of one chart. Across the wider audience data, preference for actively-watched video podcasts has climbed from 30% of listeners in 2022 to 49% today, while pure audio-only preference has fallen from 42% to 21% over the same stretch. Weekly podcast consumers who watch on YouTube say they've chosen to consume a podcast specifically because of its thumbnail nearly half the time — rising to 60% among 18–34s.
Put together, audio-only is no longer a neutral default setting for a new or growing show. It's a deliberate creative choice — one that can absolutely be the right one for a narrative, interview, or public-radio-style format — but it should be made on purpose, not by inertia or budget avoidance.
The data also suggests audio and video aren't really competing for the same job. Audio listeners are more likely to look up a website after hearing an ad and follow through with a purchase, while video watchers are more likely to click straight through to a purchase and then talk about the brand on social media. That's a useful way to frame the decision for a corporate or branded client: audio and video sponsorships tend to earn their keep in different ways, which is an argument for having both rather than picking a side.
If your show is still audio-only and you haven't asked why lately, the Top 50 says you're increasingly answering a question most of the industry has already moved past.
Poddster helps brands and creators plan, shoot, and produce video podcasts built for how people actually discover and watch them today. If you're weighing whether it's time to add a camera, get in touch and we'll walk you through what that actually looks like for your show.
