The 2025 State of

The 2025
State of

Video
Podcasts

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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?
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:

  1. YouTube is now the #1 podcast discoverability platform… but most podcasters haven’t jumped on board just yet.
  2. Consistent video posting is, by far, the leading indicator of audience growth.
  3. You only need 30 views to crack the top 50% of podcasts… and 1,100 to make it in the top 5%.
  4. 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.
  1. More than 70% of viewers watch video podcasts in the foreground, meaning your show earns more mental real estate than audio-only shows.
  2. 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).
  1. Personality-led shows are the key for building audience engagement and sustained growth based on our audience analysis of the top 150 podcasts.
  2. Our top 4 predictions for 2025... you’ll want to see these.

Have questions, comments,
or feedback?

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  • Message us at marketing@sweetfishmedia.com
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