The prediction error hiding inside the “vodcast” boom
We’ve seen this movie before.
A familiar mistake is being made in assuming that increased visibility for podcasts through video signals a permanent shift in how people consume audio.
A recent Wall Street Journal piece, Video Podcast Market Poised for Booming Growth, alongside new research from Deloitte, 2026 Technology, Media & Telecommunications Predictions, suggests podcasting is becoming more video-centric. Deloitte projects global ad revenue for podcasts and so-called “vodcasts” (a common label for video podcasts, even if it’s not exactly a standardized term) will reach $5 billion in 2026, up nearly 20 percent year over year. The survey suggests that audiences who watch these “vodcasts” consume about 1.5 times more content, and that 44 percent say they never multitask while watching, compared with 29 percent of podcast listeners who say they never multitask while listening.
The suggestion of that kind of focused attention is understandably appealing, particularly as Gen Z and millennials increasingly discover podcasts through video platforms. I’m not questioning the survey results; I’m questioning the leap from self-reported attention and discovery dynamics to a ‘video-first’ prediction about long-term consumption. And that’s something advertisers need to think about.
Are podcasts becoming more video-centric?
I’m not convinced the conclusion holds as cleanly as it reads. There is growing evidence that Gen Z is increasingly listening to YouTube rather than actively watching it, treating the platform as an audio experience. And more broadly, what people say in a survey and what they actually do are often two different things. Survey responses tend to be aspirational, simplified, or shaped by what sounds reasonable in the moment, rather than a precise reflection of real habits. Subsequent studies on this idea will offer interesting conclusions.
What the data does not say is that video is replacing audio. Neither the Wall Street Journal story nor the Deloitte survey actually makes that claim. What they describe instead is an expansion of formats, not a substitution. The interpretive leap happens afterward, when increased visibility through video gets mistaken for dominance in long-term consumption.
The MTV era is the clearest parallel
That leap should feel familiar. In the early 1980s, the rise of MTV, alongside regional counterparts like MuchMusic in Canada, Top of the Pops in the UK, and Countdown in Australia, radically reshaped how music was discovered. For a period of time, music felt visual. Analysts assumed that because video was culturally powerful and commercially influential, audio listening would inevitably decline. It didn’t.
MTV didn’t fail. What failed was the prediction that discovery would permanently redefine consumption. Analysts confused visibility with habit, and cultural impact with time spent. Video didn’t replace audio. It fed it.
The same dynamic appears to be unfolding in podcasting. Video demands attention. Audio keeps people company. Across more than 100 client podcasts we’ve worked on, the pattern is consistent: video brings more people into the ecosystem, but listeners spend far more time with individual episodes than viewers do. Person to person, the listener typically spends longer with a given episode than the viewer, even if video attracts more initial attention.
And the argument Deloitte makes that video drives people to have more focused attention is a double-edged sword. They aren’t necessarily attentive to your content… they’re attentive to looking for things that please their visual senses. And frequently, it’s resulting in people clicking away from the video to go to another one. Going with Deloitte’s conclusion, when they’re more tuned in, they’re more likely to be turned off.
Video can absolutely be compelling, but it’s also competing with everything else on a screen. Audio integrates into daily life. It tolerates distraction. It rewards persistence rather than polish.
Why audio sticks: attention vs memory
Video commands you stop what you’re doing and pay attention. The price you pay is that attention, for humans, is fleeting and it doesn’t necessarily translate into long-term memory. Attention is a gateway, but memory tends to form when attention turns into meaningful encoding, usually through relevance, repetition, emotion, and context. Audio seeks to be accepted into your daily life pattern. And that matters because audio often wins by slipping into routines and earning repeated exposure in moments that already carry meaning for the listener, which helps ideas attach to what’s already in their memory system.
The growth of video in podcasting is real and meaningful, particularly for discovery, promotion, and audience expansion. But misreading that growth as evidence that audio is becoming secondary misses what history and lived experience continue to show.
Video wins moments. Audio wins habits, and habits are where memory gets built.