Cumulus: YouTube Hits All-Time High as Podcast Platform
Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights publish the Podcast Download – Fall 2025 Report, what they call “a comprehensive evaluation of the latest podcast audience trends.” The firms say that the 15th edition of the study examines the habits of weekly podcast consumers and concludes that there are differences in consumption patterns among those who prefer listening or watching podcasts. Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group senior insights manager 
Elizabeth Mayer states, “In our continued focus on YouTube and watchable podcasts, this edition of the Podcast Download reveals YouTube at an all-time high for consumption. Regardless of tenure or heavy usage, YouTube remains in the top spot, which speaks to podcast consumers seeking out watchable podcasts. 12% of weekly podcast consumers use Smart TVs where video components are intuitive and easy to access to listen to podcasts.” Signal Hill Insights president and CEO Paul Riismandel adds, “Audio is still key. While we see yet another bump in the preference to use YouTube for podcasts, we don’t see notable change in the number of weekly podcast consumers who are only watching their podcasts. This segment remains a tiny minority – just 8% in this report.” See more and download the full report here.
Conduct a “brand early and often” creative audit: Watch/listen to all your ads. Check off if your brand is mentioned in first two seconds and if there are at least five or more audio track brand mentions in 30-second ads; 2) You can look away but you cannot shut your ears: In video ads, audio branding does all the brand recall heavy lifting; 3) Audio case studies reveal implementing the “brand early and often” creative best practice generates stronger purchase intention and increased brand lift and website attribution; 4) Do you want your brand association and recall to explode? Use a jingle with melody that says the name of your company; and 5) Don’t blame the media plan or media vendors for weak attribution and brand lift: Usually creative is the issue and the ad copy fails to “brand early and often.”