Earlier this week, Netflix announced it had sealed separate but similar multiyear deals with two major podcast producers: Barstool Sports and iHeartMedia. Those deals will pull new episodes of shows like My Favorite Murder, The Breakfast Club, Bobby Bones Presents: The Bobbycast, Pardon My Take, The Ryen Russillo Podcast, and Spittin’ Chiclets off YouTube and take them exclusively to Netflix.
With that move, Netflix–which has long been rankled by YouTube’s dominant run at the top of U.S. streaming service charts–did two things.
First, it reaffirmed that despite its chief executives trying very hard to draw lines between their “premium” “spectacle” content and YouTubers’ videos, it continues to consider Google’s platform a zero-cost, incubating vat of new talent, ripe for plucking whenever convenient.
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And second, it pitched itself as a direct competitor in the video podcast space, which till now had mostly been defined by competition between YouTube and Spotify.
As we wrote, Netflix didn’t ‘just’ pick up a smaller show, or decide to sign creators to launch new shows on its streamer. Instead, it went after big dogs that already make some of YouTube’s most-watched video podcasts, and will probably produce more in the future, given the financial runway and talent (and assuming video podcasts continue to be a thing).
But YouTube isn’t taking that lying down. On Dec. 18, a couple days after Netflix’s twin announcements, YouTube published a short, single-purpose blog post. That single purpose? To convey exactly how much podcast watch time YouTube is banking on TVs alone, and remind Netflix that it may take creators’ shows, but it’ll still lag behind on Nielsen’s charts.
“Looking back at 2025 as a breakthrough year for podcasts on YouTube, one thing stands out: viewership on TVs is higher than ever,” YouTube wrote. “In fact, viewers watched over 700 million hours of podcasts on living room devices in October 2025, up from 400 million hours from just a year prior.”
In addition, a YouTube spokesperson tells us the platform “has seen a steady growth of podcast consumption in a year filled with highlights.”
Those highlights include:
- YouTube surpassing 1 billion monthly active viewers for podcasts, which happened in February
- YouTube launching its own Weekly Top Podcast charts
- and YouTube rolling out an updated “Shows” UI meant to better organize series and give video podcast TV viewership a slicker feel
With all that in mind, it has been a banner year for YouTube on the podcast front (and some other fronts, too). And while we can’t say for sure that YouTube published this data as a direct rebuttal to Netflix’s poaching, the timing is certainly…coincidental.
