UK leads world for video podcast viewing as smart TVs gain ground, report finds

The UK has become the world's largest market for video podcasts, according to a new report from Signal Hill Insights and FlightStory, the global media company founded by Steven Bartlett.

Podcasts in the Living Room, a Pulse Report published today, surveyed 1,003 UK podcast consumers aged 18 and over who engage with podcasts monthly. Its findings challenge assumptions about where people listen.

FlightStory's podcasts include Bartlett's The Diary of a CEO, Davina McCall's Begin Again and Paul C. Brunson's We Need to Talk.

The report found that 84% of monthly UK podcast consumers watch video podcasts. That compares with 75% in Canada and 62% in the US, based on The Canadian Podcast Listener 2025 and The Podcast Landscape (U.S.) 2025.

Smart TVs second only to phones

Smart TVs have become a major podcast device. Ofcom figures show 74% of UK households own one, and 45% of monthly podcast consumers in the UK now watch podcasts on them.

That makes the smart TV the second most used device after smartphones, at 80%, and puts it ahead of tablets and computers, each on 44%.

FlightStory published its own YouTube viewing data alongside the survey. Smart TVs accounted for more than 1.6 million hours of The Diary of a CEO's viewing, or 29.1% of the 5.5 million hours watched on all devices.

For We Need to Talk, 87,337 of 270,567 total hours (32.3%) were on TV. Across all FlightStory content, the smart TV is the second most used viewing device, in line with the survey.

Video podcasts have also become a prime-time habit. Some 54% of monthly viewers watch between 19:00 and 23:00, putting podcasts in direct competition with linear TV and streaming. In addition, 44% watch with someone else, suggesting headline audience numbers may understate actual reach.

Signal Hill Insights president Paul Riismandel said: “The data tells a clear story: podcasts have entered the living room and they are here to stay. This is no longer an emerging trend, it is a fundamental shift in how UK audiences are spending their evenings.”

Lily Taurau, group business director at FlightStory, said: “For years, the planning assumption for podcasts was simple: one listener, one pair of headphones, one commute. Our newly revealed data, in partnership with Signal Hill Insights, confirms that picture no longer holds.”

She added: “UK audiences are watching video podcasts on their Smart TVs at 7pm with their families, competing directly with linear TV in prime time, and that has real implications for how brands should be showing up. The brands and agencies that move first will be the ones best positioned to claim genuinely new white space.”