YouTube has edged out Spotify to become the most-used podcast platform in the United Kingdom, according to new data from Edison Research. The company’s “Edison Podcast Metrics UK” found that 29% of weekly podcast listeners aged 15 and older named YouTube as the service they use most to consume podcasts, ahead of Spotify’s 28%, marking the first time YouTube has taken the top spot in the UK market. The shift comes nearly two years after YouTube first overtook Spotify in the United States.
Source: Edison Research
BBC Sounds ranked third, with 15% of UK podcast consumers naming it their primary service, a share Edison Research says has no equivalent among public media podcast offerings in the U.S. and is large enough to compete directly with YouTube and Spotify for share. The firm points to that entrenched public media presence as one reason YouTube’s UK growth has trailed its faster rise in the U.S. market.
A Video-Led Shift in Motion
The UK finding lands alongside other recent research pointing to the same underlying trend: podcast consumption is moving toward video and the living room. A May report from Signal Hill Insights and FlightStory found that smart TVs are now the second most-used device for UK podcast consumption, at 45%, behind only smartphones, with 64% of consumers aged 18 to 34 using a smart TV to watch podcasts in the past month.
Media buyers are already adjusting for it. A November 2025 survey of UK agencies by Pixability found that 85% plan to use YouTube on TV screens in 2026, up from 23% the year before, and 73% now classify YouTube as a Connected TV platform rather than solely a video-sharing site.
“YouTube is no longer just a stand-alone video platform,” Matt Ryan, strategic partnerships lead at Dentsu London, told Pixability. “It’s a social platform through Shorts, a CTV platform appearing on TV screens across the world, and a demand gen platform driving real business results.”
Spotify’s Response
Spotify has been building toward the same video and engagement territory through Spotify for Creators, the rebranded successor to Anchor, which now offers free video hosting, in-app comments, polls, and eligibility-based monetization modeled on YouTube’s creator infrastructure.
Nii Ahene, founder of Net Influencer, has described the product as Spotify running “that exact playbook” YouTube used between 2007 and 2012 to lock in creator dependency ahead of monetization. Edison’s UK figures suggest that repositioning has yet to close the gap with YouTube’s existing video and CTV footprint.
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YouTube has edged out Spotify to become the most-used podcast platform in the United Kingdom, according to new data from Edison Research. The company’s “Edison Podcast Metrics UK” found that 29% of weekly podcast listeners aged 15 and older named YouTube as the service they use most to consume podcasts, ahead of Spotify’s 28%, marking the first time YouTube has taken the top spot in the UK market. The shift comes nearly two years after YouTube first overtook Spotify in the United States.
Source: Edison Research
BBC Sounds ranked third, with 15% of UK podcast consumers naming it their primary service, a share Edison Research says has no equivalent among public media podcast offerings in the U.S. and is large enough to compete directly with YouTube and Spotify for share. The firm points to that entrenched public media presence as one reason YouTube’s UK growth has trailed its faster rise in the U.S. market.
A Video-Led Shift in Motion
The UK finding lands alongside other recent research pointing to the same underlying trend: podcast consumption is moving toward video and the living room. A May report from Signal Hill Insights and FlightStory found that smart TVs are now the second most-used device for UK podcast consumption, at 45%, behind only smartphones, with 64% of consumers aged 18 to 34 using a smart TV to watch podcasts in the past month.
Media buyers are already adjusting for it. A November 2025 survey of UK agencies by Pixability found that 85% plan to use YouTube on TV screens in 2026, up from 23% the year before, and 73% now classify YouTube as a Connected TV platform rather than solely a video-sharing site.
“YouTube is no longer just a stand-alone video platform,” Matt Ryan, strategic partnerships lead at Dentsu London, told Pixability. “It’s a social platform through Shorts, a CTV platform appearing on TV screens across the world, and a demand gen platform driving real business results.”
Spotify’s Response
Spotify has been building toward the same video and engagement territory through Spotify for Creators, the rebranded successor to Anchor, which now offers free video hosting, in-app comments, polls, and eligibility-based monetization modeled on YouTube’s creator infrastructure.
Nii Ahene, founder of Net Influencer, has described the product as Spotify running “that exact playbook” YouTube used between 2007 and 2012 to lock in creator dependency ahead of monetization. Edison’s UK figures suggest that repositioning has yet to close the gap with YouTube’s existing video and CTV footprint.
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