#podcast-audience

#podcast-audience

Espina humorously admitted to oversleeping on a significant news day, stating, 'Breaking news, mi gente! I can't believe it.' His videos celebrated Maduro's fall but also expressed concern about the complexities of the situation.

"I'm not [hiring] anyone in between," he says, noting that he recently spoke with a promising candidate who said she'd not used Claude Code-nor had she built anything with agents. She didn't get the job.

Spotify is lowering its eligibility criteria for podcasters to monetize their videos on the platform, dropping the minimum episode requirement to three, minimum consumption hours to 2,000, and engaged audience member threshold to 1,000 over the last 30 days. When the company introduced its partner program to monetize video content last year, creators needed to have published 12 episodes, hit 10,000 consumption hours over the prior 30 days, and had at least 2,000 people stream their content in the last 30 days to be part of the program.

In an annual cycle perhaps representing a new-year resolution trend, the February total was 12,852 launches, compared to 18,863 in January. In the chart above, the February total is revealed to be not only a sharp monthly downturn, but a full 13-month low point.

Social platforms like TikTok, Instagram and Facebook offer huge opportunities for marketers. They are the new de facto gatekeepers to huge audiences, and there are very few other means to reach younger audiences at scale with ease. But that access comes with trade-offs, and different platforms emerge and disappear rapidly. As part of our Predictions season, The Drum Network seeks to examine where brands and agencies fit into that environment.

In the 12-month measurement at Listen Notes (HERE), new podcast production took a sizable step downward (28%) in December 2025 compared to November of last year. Further, the November measurement represents the lowest podcast production of the 12-month period. The graph below charts the 12-month shape of new podcasts: A macro view is found in the count of new podcasts launched per year, going back to 2012. (See the chart below).

The Podcast Metrics division of Edison Research has released an interesting output of its relentless podcast metrics research: Top Ten New Podcasts of 2025. We compare that list with Edison's Top 50 Podcasts of Q4 list. First, the top ten new podcasts of 2025: Now, Edison's top 50 of all podcasts in Q4 - the top 10 shown below: The Joe Rogan Experience Crime Junkie