5 Reasons to Launch a Podcast in 2026

Podcast audiences in the UK are still growing. Ofcom's latest figures show 27% of UK adults now listen weekly, up from 23% the year before. If you're thinking about launching a podcast, or bringing a stalled one back to life, here are five reasons this is the year to do it.

1. Your audience is easier to find

YouTube has become podcasting's front door. Edison Research's UK Podcast Consumer 2026 report found that 29% of weekly UK podcast listeners now use YouTube as their primary platform, overtaking Spotify (28%) for the first time. Global research from Sounds Profitable backs this up: 40% of listeners found their favourite show on YouTube specifically, more than double any other single platform, rising to 61% when you include social media discovery too.

So now, YouTube shouldn’t be seen as just a platform to bolt on, it should be an integrated part of the strategy. A podcast built with YouTube in mind from day one reaches people who were never going to find you through a podcast app. 

Think about it, your brand has just gained a whole new audience.

2. Podcast tech continues to streamline the process

Production tech keeps getting better, but for years the bigger gap was measurement. That's changing.

If you're producing in-house, tools like Descript now handle recording as well as editing, with AI features that strip out a lot of the fiddly work. Riverside, once just a remorse recording tool is now a one-stop-shop. And kit like the Nomono Sound Capsule (one of favourites) means you can get broadcast-quality audio in almost any environment There's no excuse for a badly produced podcast anymore, whoever's making it.

There’s big shifts in podcast data too. Downloads were always a blunt instrument, telling you almost nothing about whether anyone actually listened, came back, or did anything as a result. Platforms like Bumper are changing that. Its dashboard now pulls listeners, viewers, listen time, followers and downloads from every major platform into one place, so you're not stitching together spreadsheets from five different apps. It's also launched a score built to verify audience quality, not just size, aimed at the trust gap that's kept some advertisers cautious about podcast spend.

For brands, that's the real shift. You can finally show the board attention, engagement and retention. Not just a download count that never told anyone very much.

3. The audience keeps growing

A recent global study from NumberEight, Barometer, AdsWizz and Sounds Profitable found Gen Z and Gen X are the fastest-growing podcast audiences worldwide, with Gen Z engagement rising particularly sharply in the UK and Australia. Millennials still make up the backbone of podcast listening, but the audience on either side of them is catching up fast.

Whoever you're trying to reach, there's a growing, engaged audience already listening. The question isn't whether they're there. It's whether your podcast is good enough to earn their attention.

4. Podcasts have found a new stage

Video podcasts keep pushing further into the mainstream. The Rest Is Football, Gary Lineker's football podcast, was one of Netflix's biggest hits of the summer during the World Cup. Netflix has now signed it on for two more years of weekly Premier League coverage. Podcasts aren't confined to podcast apps anymore. They're becoming appointment viewing.

That doesnt mean your brand needs to be aiming for Netflix. It does mean that visual podcasts are really being taken seriously, by audiences, by publishers and by brands.

Audio is well and truly not lost its place though. Most listeners still choose audio-only, or treat video as something to have on rather than watch closely, and that split matters when you're deciding how to shoot and produce a show. The big takeaway - your audio audience should still be your main focus - but now you can give them something to look at too.

Whether you launch audio-first or build video in from day one, the format keeps proving itself as one of the most trusted ways for a brand to earn attention and hold onto it.

5. One billion reasons this works

Dish from Waitrose is now the world's most successful branded podcast, passing one billion combined downloads, views and listens since it launched in 2022. Hosted by Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett, it's the only branded podcast sitting in both the Apple and Spotify global top 100, and the only one in the UK's top 20.

The real proof isn't the download count though. It's what the podcast is doing for the business: 78% of listeners say Dish has made them shop at Waitrose more often. That's a podcast working exactly as it should, building a relationship with an audience that shows up in the till receipts, not just the charts.

The tools are ready, the platforms are ready and the audience is already listening. The only thing missing is the podcast.

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