Mike Wooller, Head of Strategy and Platforms, Podcasts at dmg media writes for PodcastingToday – Looking Forward to 2026: Greater Opportunities for Discovery.
Every few years, podcasting has a defining buzzword that shapes its next phase. If 2020 marked the rise of ‘celebrity’ podcasts, 2025 has been the year of ‘video’. Spotify launched its own video offering, Netflix signed exclusive licensing deals with some of the UK’s biggest shows, and Acast partnered with Little Dot Studios to enable video monetisation for the tens of thousands of creators using its platform. These moves signal a clear shift in how advertisers, audiences and creators are thinking about podcasts.
The nuance matters. A YouTube series or a Netflix show does not become a podcast simply because two people are speaking into microphones. At the same time, podcasts absolutely can exist as video content. Those ideas are not in conflict.
I think about it this way: a podcast is a linear, long-form piece of conversational, or narrative, storytelling designed to be fully understood without active viewing and distributed on demand. Historically, that distribution happened almost entirely via RSS. Under this definition, a video of two people talking into microphones on YouTube can still be a podcast, provided it works as a linear listen and does not require the audience to watch the screen to follow what is happening.
Definitions aside, this evolution has opened up genuine opportunities for creators, particularly around discovery, audience engagement and, crucially, revenue.
People rarely stumble across podcasts by chance. Research from Edison’s The Infinite Dial (2024) shows that discovery is most often driven by recommendation and exposure elsewhere: 54% of listeners cite word of mouth, 24% find shows via social clips, and 22% via other podcasts.
A short TikTok clip on its own is unlikely to convert a casual scroller into a committed listener, and this is where many creators misstep. Platforms are too often treated purely as funnels, with short-form content reduced to marketing collateral. A stronger approach is to treat each channel as a legitimate place for the IP to exist in its own right. Native content that stands independently will consistently outperform generic promotional content.
Not every podcast needs a YouTube channel, a TikTok account, or a newsletter. However, every podcast creator does need a clear view on how people might encounter their work outside of their listening platform, and a plan to reach them.
A useful shift is to start thinking about podcasts in terms of a brand universe.
We have seen this principle play out in our own work. The Crime Desk was built from a clear audience insight. Listeners to our true crime shows, including The Trial, skewed towards a similar demographic and closely mirrored our existing print readership. Rather than launching those shows as video offerings, which would not have been feasible for most of them, we built a subscriber platform designed for our most engaged listeners. This was supported by a dedicated newsletter and tied together with our journalistic output across print, digital and social video. The podcast slate remains central but now sits within a broader brand universe that audiences can move through depending on how and where they prefer to engage.
This is also where video can make sense. Our royal history podcast, Queens, Kings and Dastardly Things, began expanding into video this year. That decision was not driven by trend-following. We already knew there was a substantial audience engaging with our Royals content on YouTube. Video allowed us to offer additional value to that already invested audience.
Video works best when it adds something tangible. That might be increased reach, improved discoverability, or a space to experiment with formats that would not work in audio alone. Despite the growing pressure on creators, video is not a default requirement. If it does not make sense for your show or your audience, it is fine to leave it alone and focus on what does.
A more useful question is perhaps, “Where else can this story live, and what does the audience gain from encountering it there?” Video is just one possible route.
The video buzz of 2025 has highlighted an opportunity that is often overlooked. A podcast does not have to exist only as the contents of an RSS feed. While the podcast will always remain central, there are new worlds of potential to extend your brand into new spaces, increasing reach, deepening audience value and ultimately unlocking new revenue.
