What global audiences are listening to—and how the publishing industry can benefit
Audio continues to dominate as a cultural content format in 2025. Podcasts, in particular, have become a powerful channel for informing, entertaining, and building loyal communities around the world. Knowing the most popular podcast genres is key for publishers, authors, and creators looking to tap into the growing world of spoken content.
📊 Diagram: Most Popular Podcast Genres by Listening Time
According to the latest data from Statista and Edison Research, these are the genres with the highest share of global listening hours:
matlabCopiarEditarGenre Share of Listening Time
------------------------------------------------
Comedy | ██████████████████████████████ 30%
Society & Culture | ████████████████████ 18%
Lifestyle & Health | █████████████████ 15%
True Crime | ███████████ 10%
Education | ███████ 7%
These figures show that listeners gravitate toward content that informs, entertains, or allows them to disconnect through humor and storytelling.
🎙️ What does this mean for the publishing industry?
For publishers and authors already working in digital formats like ebooks or audiobooks, podcasts are a natural extension of their catalog. You can transform:
- Book excerpts into narrative episodes
- Essays or novels into dramatized series
- Educational titles into audio learning capsules
- Articles into topic-based podcast mini-shows
Podcasting also helps strengthen your brand, build community, and attract new audiences that may later convert into book buyers.
🎧 Create and distribute podcasts easily with Bookset
Already publishing audiobooks or ebooks with Bookset? Then you have the perfect foundation to integrate podcast content without starting from scratch. Reuse your existing catalog, adapt your editorial voice, and launch an audio channel directly from the platform you already use to manage digital books.
👉 With Bookset, you can create, manage, and distribute audio content—whether audiobooks or podcasts—all from one place.
Expand your storytelling beyond the printed page.
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