New Global Podcast Study Sets the Standard for 2026 Audio Planning
by on 10th Dec 2025 in News
Today (10th December, 2025), NumberEight, in collaboration with Barometer, AdsWizz, and Sounds Profitable, releases a comprehensive global podcast-only audience study to date across the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, and France. The report replaces assumptions with evidence and gives advertisers a path to reach, relevance, and transparency.
"Advertisers are asking for proof, not platitudes," said Emma Raz, commercial director at NumberEight. "This study shows who is actually listening, where spending and consumption diverge, and how to best protect your brand without missing the relevant audience, allowing advertisers to scale with knowledge."
What the data shows—told as a plan for 2026
Millennials remain the backbone of podcasting, but the edges are moving fast: Gen Z and Gen X show a stronger presence in key markets—expanding the addressable podcast audience and opening fresh creative angles—especially Gen Z in AU/UK and 65+ in the US.
At the same time, investment is not evenly matched to consumption. The United States leads spend, while Australia, Germany, and France represent immediate expansion opportunities for buyers seeking incremental reach.
Local culture influences how advertisers and media planners should approach their buying strategies. The report introduces market-specific listener personas (identified by NumberEight) that turn local listening patterns into targeting actions. For example, Holiday & Travel Seniors (US), Eco-Minded Young Adults (FR), and Event & Sports Households (AU). Each persona maps age, gender balance, and content behavior to practical planning levers (categories, moments, and reach trade-offs) that slot into standard buying workflows on major audio platforms.
"In 2026, podcasting will go more global," said Anne Frisbie, SVP, global business development at AdsWizz. "We’re seeing rapid growth in multi-market audio buys, fuelled by programmatic scale, smarter contextual targeting, and the rise of global host-read opportunities. A great podcast now travels across borders—and with the right tech, so can a brand’s message. The biggest unlock next year will be treating audio not as a local channel, but as a global strategy."
Podcast suitability benefits from calibration rather than blunt exclusion. Effective approaches align tone, language, and topic sensitivity with brand guardrails while keeping engaged, brand-safe audiences in play. Broad category blocks can quietly reduce scale, particularly among multicultural and lifestyle communities. Our data shows a clear tension between suitability controls and audience relevance. For example, content marked as sexual frequently over-indexes with Beauty Shoppers and Dating & Social Singles, underscoring a real trade-off.
"Suitability in podcasts is about nuance—matching brand guardrails to tone and context," said Tamara Zubatiy, CEO of Barometer. "When buyers use tiered sensitivity and adjacency controls, they keep the protection they need and the audience quality they can’t afford to lose."
Targeting practice needs to catch up. While contextual targeting remains the dominant tactic, its concentration at Tier-2 IAB Content Taxonomy signals underuse of the full podcast toolkit. Advertisers are leaving performance on the table by not layering market personas, seasonal/moment contexts, and podcast-native lookalikes alongside category targeting. The opportunity in 2026 is to move beyond "context-only" toward multi-signal plans that preserve privacy yet improve precision, scale, and measurable lift.
"Trust and time spent are podcasting’s superpowers," said Bryan Barletta, founder of Sounds Profitable. "This study gives planners the confidence to go beyond the top charts, activate the long tail, and meet audiences where they actually listen."
As advertisers plan for 2026, this study gives an actionable view of who listens and how to reach them:
- Who’s listening: Millennials lead; Gen Z and Gen X are gaining share with distinct contextual habits.
- Where to invest next: Clear upside in Australia, Germany and France, where consumption outpaces current spend.
- How to activate fast: Market-specific listener personas turn real listening patterns into brief-ready targets.
- How to protect scale: Audio-native suitability (tiered sensitivity + contextual adjacency) safeguards brands without unnecessary reach loss.
- How to boost performance: Move beyond "context-only" by layering audience, suitability, and context.
These findings offer a practical basis to refine briefs, prioritize markets, and design plans that balance brand suitability with scale; the full study deepens that view with market-by-market insights, personas, and category trends.
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