Greetings From London
The Stories and Strategies team is in London this week for the big Podcast Show. Biggest in the world and it starts today. I took a minute to shoot a quick video for you outside Buckingham Palace.
Does the World Need Another Podcast?
Yesterday morning I was invited to speak on a panel by Folgate Advisors on the state of podcasting in the UK. It was hosted by Good Stuff in the Southwark area of London. and were my co panelists. For the record, we decided quite strongly there is plenty of room for most, well-thought and well-designed podcasts.
Featured Insight
BBC Sounds posted its biggest quarter ever in Q1 2026, with 718 million plays of radio, podcasts and music, up 5% year-on-year. Podcasts and on-demand radio were downloaded 231 million times on third-party platforms, and social video views of BBC audio hit 1.1 billion, up 21%.
But let’s take a deeper look:
Distribution: 231 million third-party downloads is the BBC quietly conceding that podcast audiences don’t live inside BBC Sounds. For a broadcaster that spent years trying to keep listeners on-platform, that’s a notable shift
Social as discovery: 1.1 billion social video views of audio content signals that the BBC is now a short-form video operation that also makes podcasts. That’s increasingly what discovery looks like, with or without a broadcast budget behind it
Trust: Newscast topping the charts during a heavy news cycle is a reminder that when the news gets difficult, audiences run toward brands they trust. A structural advantage most independents can’t replicate
The numbers: 718 million plays bundles radio, podcasts and music together. The BBC has never cleanly separated podcast-only figures, which makes it hard to know how much of this growth is podcasting, and how much is Radio 4 on in the background
Your podcast’s metadata is already communicating with your audience before they ever hear you
This week I had a great conversation with my friend Dan about how he consumes podcasts. Dan is an avid podcast listener who uses Spotify as his one-stop shop for both music and podcasts, and he has a hard rule: if an episode is under an hour, he’s not pressing play. In fact one of his favorite shows drops five-hour episodes that take him a full week to get through.
Now, the broader consumption data actually points the other direction, as the majority of podcast episodes today run between 20 and 40 minutes with a sharpening trend toward that 20-minute mark. That’s happening as professionals like me outline how shorter episodes drive better completion rates, which influences your Apple Podcasts chart standing, and appearing on the charts boosts your discoverability.
That’s the data-driven approach. But podcasting is ultimately human-driven.
Dan’s habits are a reminder that episode length is a first-click decision, because before someone ever hears your voice, your runtime is already telling them whether your show is for them. For some, they won’t click if your episode is too short. For others, they won’t click if your episode is too long.
What also stood out to me is WHEN Dan listens, since podcasts are reserved for chores while music takes over for workouts and the commute, which tells me podcast listening is often a deliberate and focused choice rather than background noise. That intentionality matters, because the people who seek out podcasts are generally looking for something with real substance and depth rather than a quick hit. Even if it’s a 20-minute episode… that’s much deeper than a 3-minute newsletter read.
Podcast listeners are actively choosing the medium precisely because it offers something different from the scroll and they arrive with a specific expectation. So whether your listener is a Dan who wants five hours or someone who caps out 20-minutes, the question worth asking is whether your show delivers on the promise your episode length is already making.
Video podcasting is thriving. For about 1% of shows.
Million Podcasts has published The State of Video Podcasting 2026, an analysis of around 34,000 active English-language video podcasts covering 7.7 million episodes. Three findings stand out.
The first is how unequal the market is. The top 1% of video podcasts capture 42% of all consumption. The bottom half of the market, some 17,000 shows, share around 1% of total listening between them.
The second is who’s behind the microphone. Among shows where host gender can be identified, men produce video podcasts at roughly twice the rate women do.
The third finding is perhaps the most useful for anyone actually making a show: endurance matters enormously. Podcasts under 25 episodes have a median of just 200 monthly listeners. Shows past 500 episodes reach 30,000. The report is careful to note this is association rather than causation, but the implication is hard to ignore. The dominant failure mode in podcasting isn’t a bad format or the wrong topic. It’s stopping.
Other Stuff
Looking for a day pass to attend The Podcast Show in London? Starts today and runs through tomorrow. If you’re coming send me a note (doug@storiesandstrategies.ca). Coffee’s on me (or tea)
May 26, the Business and Podcasting Networking event for female entrepreneurs is an online event and it’s free
May 26, free online event, The Secret to Attracting Your Podcast Audience, by Ausha
I’ve been in London three days and I’ve already lost two umbrellas and a pair of sunglasses… pray for me :)