Gen Z Podcast Statistics: How Young Listeners Differ

Gen Z meets podcasts as video, on a phone, through a clip. About 35 million Americans aged 13-24 listened to or watched a podcast in the last month, roughly 63% of that age group (Edison Research / SXM Media, Gen Z Podcast Report). Among Gen Z podcast consumers, 90% engage with video in some form and only 10% stick to audio alone (Coleman Insights / Amplifi Media, State of Video Podcasting 2025). Three in four find new shows through clips on social media. That is the whole story in one line: for this cohort, the clip is the show's front door.

The harder truth comes next. Ask two reputable firms whether Gen Z prefers video or audio and you get opposite answers, and the gap is not a measurement error you should average away. It tells you something specific about how this generation behaves. This piece gives you the verified numbers, a generation-by-generation comparison, and a rule for reading the contradictory studies without getting fooled.

Video is the default mode for young podcast consumers, only one in ten sticks to audio alone.

How many Gen Z listeners are there, and how much do they listen?

About 35 million US Gen Z consumers (ages 13-24) listen to or watch a podcast monthly, around 63% of that age group, up from an estimated 24 million (47%) in the prior benchmark (Edison Research / SXM Media, Gen Z Podcast Report, Q4 2024). They are also heavy users: 75% have listened in the last week and 28% listen nearly every day.

The cohort consumes about 7.7 hours of podcasts per week on average, and the timing of when they started matters. Gen Z listeners who began as children average 10.6 hours a week; those who started as teens, 7.5 hours; those who started as adults, 6.6 hours (Edison Research / SXM Media, Q4 2024). The earlier the habit forms, the deeper it runs, which is why the platforms are competing so hard for the 13-17 bracket now.

One correction up front, because it changes how you read every other number here: Gen Z is loud, but it is no longer the largest podcast cohort. Across Edison's Infinite Dial tracking, monthly reach among the 35-54 bracket now runs roughly even with, or slightly ahead of, the under-35 group, so the middle-aged band is no longer behind young listeners on volume. For the full age-band breakdown, see our podcast listener demographics piece. Gen Z is the trend-setter, not the volume leader. Treat its behavior as a preview of where everyone is heading, not as the bulk of today's audience.

Do Gen Z listeners prefer video or audio podcasts?

It depends on which platform they open, and that is the entire answer. On YouTube, Gen Z watches; on Spotify, Gen Z mostly listens. Edison Podcast Metrics found that among Gen Z whose primary podcast app is YouTube, 52% watch video some or all of the time, while among Gen Z Spotify users, 88% listen audio-only (Edison Podcast Metrics, Q4 2024, n=1,568 Gen Z aged 13-29; reported by Tubefilter). Format follows platform, not the other way around.

This is why "does Gen Z like video" is the wrong question. The right one is "which app did they open, and why." YouTube is the internet's video destination, so a young person who goes there to find a podcast arrives already expecting a screen. Spotify grew up as an audio app, so the same person on Spotify behaves like a radio listener. Same human, different behavior, set by the doorway.

The practical takeaway for a host: you do not choose between audio and video for Gen Z. You publish both, because your audience is split across two apps with opposite default behaviors. Audio-only feeds keep your Spotify listeners; a video version of the episode and vertical clips capture the YouTube and social half.

How does Gen Z compare to Millennials, Gen X, and Boomers?

Gen Z and Millennials behave almost identically on platform, both default to YouTube, both watch more than older cohorts, but Gen Z leans harder into social discovery and binge listening. The clean generational split shows up most in where they reach podcasts and how they find them, not in raw listening rates, which are now high across everyone under 55.

Generation	Primary platform tendency	Discovery + video signal
Gen Z (13-24)	YouTube edges Spotify; Spotify users skew audio-only	76% discover via social clips; 90% engage with video
Millennials (25-40)	YouTube leads, Spotify strong second	High social discovery; video-comfortable, watch on YouTube
Gen X (41-56)	More balanced across YouTube, Spotify, Apple	Discovery via search + friends; audio-leaning
Boomers (57+)	Apple and traditional audio over-index	Lowest monthly reach (~44% of 55+); audio-first

Sources: Edison Research, Gen Z Podcast Report; Infinite Dial 2026; Edison Podcast Metrics (Q4 2024) via Tubefilter; Coleman Insights / Amplifi Media, State of Video Podcasting 2025; Backlinko podcast stats. Apple skews older, its share grows with age, peaking in the 45-54 band, while YouTube leads across the 18-64 range. The generational story is less "young people abandoned audio" and more "young people met podcasts on a video platform first."

One honest caveat against over-reading the gap: video podcasting is not as young-skewed as the headlines imply. Coleman/Amplifi's Jay Nachlis notes that 83% of Gen Z (15-29) use audio and video interchangeably, "only slightly higher than the general population", so Gen Z is leading a shift the rest of the audience is already making, not living on a separate planet. The right read is first-mover, not outlier.

The middle-aged band now runs even with younger listeners on reach; Gen Z leads on behavior. Sourced as labeled.

Why do the Gen Z video-vs-audio surveys contradict each other?

Because they measured different people with different methods, and one design systematically over-counts audio loyalists. Coleman Insights and Amplifi Media's representative survey (1,000 US podcast consumers, Gen Z subset, 2025) found 90% engage with video in some form; Transistor's self-selected survey (~100 respondents recruited via Reddit, Tumblr, and newsletters, early 2025) found 76% prefer audio-only. Both numbers are real. They are not measuring the same thing.

This is the single most useful skill for reading Gen Z stats, so here is a reusable framework you can apply to any future report.

The Reconciliation Rule: three checks before you trust a Gen Z stat

Who did they ask, and how were they recruited? A representative panel (Coleman/Amplifi surveyed 1,000 US podcast consumers; Edison weights to its Infinite Dial benchmark) and an opt-in survey advertised on Reddit and Tumblr will not return the same audience. A podcast host's audience survey self-selects for people already deep in audio, they are answering because they love podcasts, which biases toward established audio habits. Sample frame beats sample size: a representative 1,000 beats an opt-in 100, every time.
Did they ask about preference or behavior? "Do you prefer audio?" and "Do you ever watch video?" produce different answers from the same person. Someone can prefer audio for the commute and still watch the YouTube version at home. Coleman/Amplifi's 90% measures behavior (engage with video in some form); Transistor's 76% measures stated preference. Both can be true at once.
What was each respondent's primary platform? Because format follows platform, a sample skewed toward Spotify users will report more audio-only, and a YouTube-skewed sample will report more video. Always check the platform mix before you trust a headline video/audio split.

Run those three checks and the contradiction dissolves: most Gen Z listeners watch video sometimes (behavior) while many still prefer audio for specific moments (preference), and the split you measure swings with which app dominates your sample. Radio Ink reached the same reconciliation, that the conflicting reports reflect genuine measurement differences rather than disagreement about reality.

Same generation, opposite headlines, driven by recruitment and question wording, not by the truth changing.

How does Gen Z discover new podcasts?

Through clips, overwhelmingly. 76% of Gen Z monthly listeners say they discover podcasts through clips on social media, and 26% first encountered podcasts via a social post, with another 19% via a social-media influencer or personality they follow (Edison Research / SXM Media, Q4 2024). YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram are the discovery surface; the long episode is what they graduate to afterward.

That ordering is the operational insight. For older cohorts, discovery still leans on search and word of mouth; for Gen Z, a 30-90 second clip in a feed does the first-contact work. If your show has no clips, you are invisible to the discovery channel this generation actually uses. The clipping economy that now floods every feed exists precisely because it maps onto how young audiences find things, and it is reshaping the economics of podcast promotion.

Clips are the dominant first-contact channel for Gen Z, discovery happens in the feed, not the directory.

What does Gen Z actually listen to, and do they act on ads?

Comedy leads Gen Z genre preference at 37%, followed by music (35%), entertainment/celebrity/gossip (30%), true crime (29%), and sports (26%), with music topping the 13-17 group and comedy topping 18-24 (Edison Research / SXM Media, Q4 2024). The genre mix tilts lighter and more social than the all-ages chart, where news ranks far higher.

On advertising, this cohort over-performs. 82% of Gen Z monthly listeners say they have taken some action after hearing a podcast ad, 70% have purchased or wanted to purchase, and 61% have visited a product website (Edison Research / SXM Media, Q4 2024). The catch is authenticity: 37% prefer brands that share the same values as the shows or hosts they follow. A host-read, on-brand mention works; a bolted-on spot does not. That fit-over-reach dynamic is the same reason native clips outperform repurposed TV ads in their feeds.

Limitations and caveats

These numbers deserve the same scrutiny the Reconciliation Rule applies to everyone else's.

The Gen Z-specific data is Q4 2024. Edison's dedicated Gen Z Podcast Report with SXM Media is built on Q4 2024 fieldwork; the broadest 2026 figures come from Infinite Dial 2026. Where I cite a 2026 number, it is from the general study, not the Gen Z-specific one, I have labeled which is which.
"Gen Z" is defined differently across sources. Edison/SXM uses 13-24; Coleman/Amplifi's video figure uses a 15-29 Gen Z subset; Edison Podcast Metrics isolates 13-29; other surveys use 13-28. A wider band pulls in older, more audio-habituated respondents and nudges the audio share up. Always check the age definition before comparing two Gen Z stats, the 90% video figure and the 63% reach figure are not drawn from the same exact age band.
The headline figures come from three different studies. The 90%-engage-with-video number is Coleman Insights / Amplifi Media (n=1,000 US consumers, 2025); the YouTube-vs-Spotify behavior split is Edison Podcast Metrics (Q4 2024, n=1,568 Gen Z); the 63% reach and discovery/genre/ad stats are the Edison/SXM Gen Z Podcast Report. They agree directionally, but they are not one dataset, treat each decimal as directional, not a hard count.
Self-reported behavior overstates intent. "I would purchase" is not a purchase. The 70% purchase-intent figure measures stated response, not transactions, useful for direction, not for forecasting revenue.

Stating these out loud is the point. A Gen Z stat with no age definition and no methodology note is not a fact yet; it is a headline waiting to be checked.

FAQ

What percentage of Gen Z listens to podcasts? About 63% of US 13-to-24-year-olds listened to or watched a podcast in the last month, roughly 35 million people (Edison Research / SXM Media, Gen Z Podcast Report, Q4 2024). Of those, 75% listened in the past week and 28% listen nearly every day.

Does Gen Z prefer YouTube or Spotify for podcasts? YouTube holds a small edge over Spotify as the platform Gen Z uses most for podcasts (Edison Research, Apr 2025). The two apps drive opposite behavior: YouTube Gen Z users watch video (52% at least sometimes), while Spotify Gen Z users skew audio-only (~88%).

Do Gen Z listeners watch video podcasts? Yes, mostly. About 90% of Gen Z podcast consumers engage with video in some form, and only ~10% stick to audio alone (Coleman Insights / Amplifi Media, State of Video Podcasting 2025). Stated preference is more split, one survey found 76% prefer audio-only, because preference and behavior measure different things.

How does Gen Z find new podcasts? Through clips, primarily. 76% of Gen Z monthly listeners discover shows via clips on social media, with social posts (26%) and influencers (19%) ahead of search (15%) and tied with friends and family (19%) (Edison Research / SXM Media, Q4 2024).

Is Gen Z the biggest podcast audience? No. Gen Z sets the trends, but the 35-54 band now runs roughly even with the under-35 group on monthly reach rather than trailing it (Edison Research, Infinite Dial tracking). Read Gen Z as a preview of where the whole audience is moving, not as the volume center.

Cite this study

Fischer, L. (2026). Gen Z Podcast Statistics: How Young Listeners Differ. QuickReel. Primary figures from Edison Research / SXM Media, Gen Z Podcast Report (Q4 2024 fieldwork); Edison Research, Infinite Dial 2026; Edison Podcast Metrics (Q4 2024, via Tubefilter); Coleman Insights / Amplifi Media, State of Video Podcasting 2025; Transistor Gen Z survey (2025). Reconciliation Rule framework original to QuickReel.

For the wider picture, see our 2026 podcast statistics roundup and the count of how many podcasts actually exist.