The global podcast industry now contains 3.7 million shows and 189.8 million episodes, according to data from Listen Notes, a podcast search engine and database. The figures indicate a sharp deceleration in new podcast launches, with monthly creation rates declining by approximately 40% from their early 2025 peaks.

Listen Notes reports that new podcast launches declined from roughly 20,000 per month in January 2025 to approximately 12,000 by November 2025, based on first-episode publication dates. The database tracks RSS-based podcasts globally, excluding shows that have been deleted, AI-generated content, and feeds containing no episodes or only test clips.

Market Concentration and Language Distribution

Listen Notes data shows English-language podcasts dominate the medium, followed by Spanish and Portuguese. The United States leads podcast production by region, followed by Brazil and Indonesia. Anchor.fm hosts 55.7% of all podcasts tracked, with Buzzsprout at 6.9% and Spreaker at 4.1%.

The “Society & Culture” category contains the most podcasts, followed by “Education” and “Business” genres.

Episode Production Trends

New episode publication peaked in 2021 and 2022 at approximately 30 million episodes annually before declining to roughly 26 million in 2024. Listen Notes reports removing between 2,000 and 4,000 AI-generated podcasts from its database each month throughout 2025.

Image credits: Listen Notes
The full report is available here