If 2025 proved anything, it's that podcasts aren't just part of the conversation anymore. They are the conversation. When something big happened, Spotify audiences turned to their favorite creators to process the news together.
Here's how the moments that defined 2025 came to life on Spotify, and how you and your fans made them matter.
Creators broke news (and the internet)
On football’s biggest night, millions gathered on Spotify to dissect the moment — from Philadelphia’s stunning upset to Kendrick’s explosive halftime show. Creators published more than 30,000 episodes1 about the big game, turning one night into weeks of conversation:
- The Bill Simmons Podcast’s Super Bowl recap led the pack for episodes about the big game, with users watching & listening to 11,000 more hours on Spotify in its first 7 days than the show’s average episode.2
That energy set the stage for 2025, and continued on into awards season:
- Oscar recap episodes drove big lifts in listening: The Toast spiked 128% in users, and Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend jumped 43% in users above its average episode on Spotify.3
Some of the biggest engagement boosts came from creators who showed up fast and authentic when news broke:
- But it wasn’t just for the biggest shows: All episodes on Spotify where creators discussed a top cultural moment of the year performed 30% better than their average episode.4
Podcasts got face time
All these big moments had one thing in common: You had to see them to believe them. This year video podcasting exploded, with video consumption reaching new highs:
- Time spent with video content has more than doubled year-over-year on Spotify, driven mostly by video podcasts, and this consumption has increased by more than 80% since the launch of the Spotify Partner Program in January of this year.5
- And audiences are watching closely — News, Sports, and History shows all saw over 200% growth in active video consumption on Spotify.6
Fans took to the comments section
Fans showed up as unofficial co-hosts, sharing jokes and offering their own hot takes in the comments section. Comedy took the lead as the most commented-upon genre on Spotify:
- Comedy shows had nearly 6 million comments, and 1.25 million replies.7
- Arts shows had over 2.2 million comments.8
- Society & Culture shows saw over 2 million comments.9
The emoji data tells its own story:
- The heart (❤️) showed up 3.3 million times across 900,000+ comments.10
- The crying face (😭) appeared 1.2 million times in over 500,000+ comments.11
On Spotify, creators used comments and polls to open the door to something deeper: real dialogue with the fans who show up every week. Fans didn’t just react — they offered segment and guest ideas, and disagreed, defended, and discussed every angle from the last episode. For many creators, the comments became a space for conversations, in-jokes that carried across episodes, and the kind of mutual trust that turns audiences into communities.
Global moments found local voices
Great content crosses borders. On Spotify in 2025, audiences discovered creators from countries they'd never visited, and creators found fans in places they never expected:
- Over 60% of all shows now have listeners in multiple countries on Spotify. This is also true for shows that published their very first episode in 2025.12
- Over 6,000 shows charted on Spotify in more than one country.13
The new main stage
In 2025, creators on Spotify went from participating in culture to shaping it.
Whether you covered breaking moments, dissected celebrity gossip, experimented with video, or found fans across the globe, you redefined how people experience media.
Audiences are realizing that Spotify is the place to find fresh perspectives on current events, and add their opinions to the mix. The fastest-growing podcast category was also the most timely:
- In 2025, consumption of News shows on Spotify grew 3x faster than podcasts overall.14
Celebrate your 2025 story
Your 2025 Wrapped data is live right now. Head to Spotify for Creators to explore your top fans, your most-loved moments, and the creative highs that made this year unforgettable.
Then share it. Celebrate with your fans. And carry that momentum straight into 2026.
Methodology and Disclaimers
1. We looked at all episodes published in the 2 weeks prior to and after the Super Bowl that mentioned the Super Bowl in their episode title or description.
2. We looked at a 7-day post publish period of consumption for all shows that mentioned a culturally relevant event in their episode title or description and compared that to the show’s average post-publish consumption for the same period.
3. We looked at a 7-day post-publish period and found the number of unique listeners of a show’s episode that mentions a culturally relevant event in the episode title or description and compared that to the show’s average number of unique listeners in the same post-publish period.
4. We looked at the median percent change between a show’s average episode consumption in the first 7 days after publish and the culturally relevant episode’s consumption in the first 7 days after publish for all shows that mentioned a key cultural moment in their episode title or description.
5. Video podcast growth on Spotify as reported by Tech Crunch
6. We looked at the percent change between foreground video hour consumption by genre for January 1, 2024 - October 31, 2024 period and the January 1, 2025 - October 31, 2025 period.
7, 8, & 9. We looked at the total number of comments that were created on Spotify in 2025 split by comment type and show genre.
10. & 11. We looked at the number of comments that had an emoji and the number of times the emoji appeared.
12. We looked at the number of shows with consumption in more than one country relative to the total number of shows on the platform, for all shows and shows that published their video after January 1, 2025.
13. We looked at shows that charted in more than one country at least once between January 1, 2025 and October 31, 2025
14. We looked at the percent change in consumption for all shows categorized in the “News” genre between January 1, 2024 - October 31, 2024 and January 1, 2025 - October 31, 2025 and compared that to the percent change in consumption for all shows on the platform between the same periods.
