- New Pulse Report of 1,000+ UK monthly podcast consumers finds 84% watch video podcasts, significantly outpacing competitor markets like the US and Canada
- SmartTV’s are now the #2 podcast consumption device in Britain
- Audience habits rival those of traditional prime-time television and 44% of video podcast viewers watch with someone else
London, United Kingdom: 27th May, 2026: The living room has become the new frontier for podcasting. That is the central finding of “Podcasts in the Living Room,” a new Pulse Report published today by Signal Hill Insights and global media company FlightStory – home to some of the world’s biggest podcasts, including Steven Bartlett’s The Diary of a CEO, Paul C. Brunson’s We Need to Talk, and Davina McCall’s Begin Again – surveying 1,003 monthly podcast consumers aged 18+ in the UK.
The research delivers a comprehensive picture of how UK audiences are consuming video podcasts, and the results challenge fundamental assumptions about where and how people listen.
Video Podcasts Are Now the Default in the UK
The UK is a global leader in video podcasts, with 84% of monthly consumers watching them, surpassing the US (62%) and Canada (75%)*.
The Smart TV: Podcasting’s Biggest Untapped Screen
The report highlights the Smart TV’s rise as a podcast platform. With 74% of UK households owning a Smart TV**, 45% of monthly UK podcast consumers now use it to watch podcasts, making it the second most popular device after smartphones (80%). Smart TVs even surpass both tablets and computers (44% each).
FlightStory’s own YouTube viewership data, published alongside the survey findings, validates this at scale:
- The Diary of a CEO accumulated over 1.6 million hours of watch time on Smart TVs alone (29.1% of total viewing), from a total of 5.5 million hours across all devices
- We Need to Talk generated 87,337 TV hours out of 270,567 total hours (32.3% on Smart TV)
- Across all Flight Story content, Smart TV is the #2 consumption device, matching the national survey findings
Prime Time, Premium Experience
Video podcasting is a prime-time habit (54% of monthly viewers watch 19:00-23:00), competing directly with linear TV and streaming. 44% of viewers watch with someone else, meaning headline audience figures may significantly undercount actual reach.
What drives that engagement? Authenticity: 39% of video podcast consumers rank seeing hosts and guests interact as the single most valuable on-screen element, above set design, graphics, or production values.
Paul Riismandel, President of Signal Hill Insights, comments, “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 Flight Story, shares, “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. 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.”
To read the complete Podcasts in the Living Room report, please visit here.
ENDS
*Sources: The Canadian Podcast Listener 2025; The Podcast Landscape (U.S.) 2025
**Ofcom Insights, 2026
About the Research
“Podcasts in the Living Room” is based on a nationally representative online survey of 1,003 monthly podcast consumers aged 18+ in the United Kingdom, conducted between 3 and 9 March 2026. The Pulse Report was commissioned jointly by Signal Hill Insights and Flight Story. Supplementary consumption data is drawn from Flight Story’s YouTube channel analytics for the same period.
About Signal Hill Insights
Signal Hill Insights is a media research firm that blends high quality research with finely tuned insights to deliver actionable intelligence for broadcasters, publishers, brands and agencies around the globe.
With a focus on scalable, custom research, Signal Hill Insights is passionate about providing the personalized service and advice our clients need to drive real-world business objectives. Visit SignalHillInsights.com to learn more.
About FlightStory
As a global media company, FlightStory is focused on developing influential IP and scaling global creator-led brands. It is built on the proprietary methodologies and technology that have driven the global success of the world’s second-biggest interview podcast and the number 1 show in Europe, The Diary Of A CEO (DOAC).
Founded in 2023, FlightStory has successfully launched brand new formats, including We Need To Talk with Paul C. Brunson and Davina McCall’s Begin Again, both reaching #1 on Spotify and Apple charts and with a combined social and podcast following of over 2.5M people and over 800M views across all channels since launch. In 2025, DOAC’s commercial value tripled under FlightStory.
FlightStory is also home to a publishing venture in partnership with Ebury, a division of Penguin Random House. Reaching global audiences with stories that resonate and inspire action, it is home to Steven Bartlett’s no 1 Sunday Times best-selling book Diary Of A CEO: The 33 Laws Of Business and Life, the fastest-selling book in its category since records began.
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Email: molly@soundsprofitable.com
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