The 2025 State of
The 2025
State of
Video
Podcasts
This is our first-ever annual report, sharing our video podcast research insights and hard-won experience to maximize the success of your video podcast strategy.
Why should you
listen to us?
listen to us?
We’re Sweet Fish, producers of over 350+ podcasts, across 10,000 episodes and 22M downloads and counting.
We’re the proud team behind Creator House, our one-of-a-kind multimedia production studio in Orlando, and we’re growing our own video podcast — B2B Growth.
For this report, we Didn't hold back:
- Deep dove on 150 top-ranking podcasts to uncover what’s working (and what’s not) in the industry.
- Listened to over 100 hours of top-ranked video podcasts.
- Polled 200+ of today’s top business podcast experts on their POV.
- Wrote a 50-page report (!) and then edited it to 20 pages of hard-hitting insights.
- Consumed no less than 150 cups of coffee.
Major Takeaways:
- YouTube is now the #1 podcast discoverability platform… but most podcasters haven’t jumped on board just yet.
- Consistent video posting is, by far, the leading indicator of audience growth.
- You only need 30 views to crack the top 50% of podcasts… and 1,100 to make it in the top 5%.
- People follow people, not brands — in the top 150 shows that we studied, only a single branded podcast has cracked the 500,000 subscriber mark on YouTube, while the other categorizations win significantly more audience growth.
- More than 70% of viewers watch video podcasts in the foreground, meaning your show earns more mental real estate than audio-only shows.
- 76% of businesses create podcasts with the primary goal of brand awareness or thought leadership, yet 65% of respondents from the same survey create interview-style shows (aka shows that position the guest as the thought leader).
- Personality-led shows are the key for building audience engagement and sustained growth based on our audience analysis of the top 150 podcasts.
- Our top 4 predictions for 2025... you’ll want to see these.
Have questions, comments,
or feedback?
We'd love to hear it!
- Message us at marketing@sweetfishmedia.com
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Let's
Dive in!
Dive in!