Sound and Vision
This is podcasting in 2025: Many of the most popular shows are now video conversations that seem to stretch on forever. They often feature major political figures and may even have played a role in electing Donald Trump to his second term. The sheer profusion of these talk shows poses a very basic question: Who, exactly, is watching all this?
I put that question to podcast creators and viewers, industry analysts and executives. And the answer, it turns out, is complicated. In today's newsletter, I'll explain what I learned.
Who's watching
One thing we do know: A lot of people are hitting play on podcast videos. YouTube announced recently that more than a billion people a month watch podcasts on its platform. And according to the most recent survey research, around three-quarters of podcast consumers play podcast videos.
What makes it complicated, though, is that we don't know whether everyone playing these videos is actually watching them. The same survey showed that more than 40 percent of people who play podcast videos on YouTube listen to them only in the background — say, while folding laundry or doing other work.
Podcasting began as an audio-only format, which led to an extraordinary degree of intimacy between listeners and hosts. Hearing the same people in your ears week after week tends to do that. Video podcasts strive for the same, or an even greater, sense of intimacy with their audience. One superfan of 'This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von' told me that she liked to watch the entire podcast because it made her feel less alone and as if she had company over. (Von's show, which regularly draws hundreds of thousands of viewers on YouTube, typically runs for about two hours.)
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