The living room has become the new front line of podcast consumption in Britain. A study published on 27 May 2026 by Signal Hill Insights and global media company FlightStory found that 45% of monthly podcast consumers in the UK used a smart TV to watch a podcast in the preceding month - making the device the second most popular podcast screen in the country, ahead of both tablets and computers, which tied at 44%.

The research, titled "Podcasts in the Living Room," is based on a nationally representative online survey of 1,003 monthly podcast consumers aged 18 and older in the United Kingdom. Fieldwork was conducted between 3 and 9 March 2026. The report was commissioned jointly by Signal Hill Insights and FlightStory, the global media company behind some of the UK's highest-profile podcast properties including Steven Bartlett's The Diary of a CEO, Paul C. Brunson's We Need to Talk, and Davina McCall's Begin Again.

The headline figure places smart TVs second only to smartphones, which 80% of monthly consumers used for podcasts in the same period. That gap - 35 percentage points - is still substantial, but the speed at which smart TVs have climbed into the device ranking is notable. According to Ofcom, 74% of UK households now own a smart TV, making it the most ubiquitous connected device in the home.

Video podcasts are now the UK default

The UK's position as a video podcast market sets the context for the smart TV finding. According to the report, 84% of monthly podcast consumers in the UK watched a video podcast in the last month. That figure substantially outpaces comparable markets: the US stands at 62%, and Canada at 75%, according to the respective national studies Signal Hill cites. Listening remains marginally more common - 90% of monthly consumers listened to a podcast in the last month - but the gap between audio-only and video consumption has narrowed to just six percentage points.

Age is a significant variable. Among consumers aged 18 to 34, 92% watched a video podcast in the last month. Among those aged 35 to 54, the proportion drops to 86%. For the 55-and-older group, it falls to 75%. The pattern is consistent across all bands: watching is near-universal among younger audiences and still a majority behaviour among older ones.

The report also addresses a concern that has followed the growth of video podcasts from the beginning - whether the format cannibalises audio listening. According to Signal Hill, it does not. When asked what activity video podcasts replaced in their time, 55% of viewers said television and movies (linear and on-demand), 44% said social media scrolling and social video (excluding YouTube), and 35% said music listening. Only 15% said audio podcast listening. Video podcast time is coming from video and social budgets, not from audio.

Smart TVs account for over half of all podcast watch time

The device-level data is precise. According to the report, smart TVs account for just over 52% of all podcast watch timein the UK - meaning that even though more consumers watch on smartphones than on smart TVs, the large-screen format commands the largest share of total minutes spent watching.

The generational split is sharp. Among the 18-to-34 age group, 64% used a smart TV to watch a podcast in the last month, compared to 45% across all monthly consumers. That demographic is also more likely to be watching video podcasts in the first place - 94% of 18-to-34 consumers watched a video podcast in the last month, and 49% of them used a smart TV to do it, according to the report's summary section.

Smart TVs are being used for listening too, not only watching. According to the report, 21% of monthly podcast consumers listened to a podcast on a smart TV in the last month - compared to 25% who used a smart speaker or in-car entertainment system, and 83% who listened on a smartphone. The smart TV is already a significant audio playback device, independent of the video format.

The co-watching factor

One consequence of smart TV consumption that carries weight for media buyers is co-viewing. According to Signal Hill, 42% of smart TV podcast watching is accompanied by someone else. In the language of audience measurement, that means headline reach figures may undercount actual exposure. A single device session becomes a multi-person impression. The report notes that with smart TVs, one view means reaching more than one viewer.

The co-watching data parallels broader connected TV research. PPC Land has covered how co-viewing rates on premium streaming platforms can run as high as 60%, and how CTV advertisers have begun building measurement frameworksthat account for shared-screen dynamics rather than one-to-one device attribution.

Primetime viewing, primetime competition

The time-of-day data in the report is structurally important for any advertiser comparing podcast budgets against television spend. According to Signal Hill, 54% of video podcast consumers watch during the evening window of 19:00 to 23:00 - what the report calls weekday evening prime time. No other time of day comes close. Late afternoon, from 16:00 to 19:00, reaches 31% of video watchers. Afternoon, from 12:00 to 16:00, reaches 23%.

Listening is distributed differently. Audio podcast consumption is more spread across the day, with 37% of listeners tuning in during the evening window, 33% in the late afternoon, and 29% each in the morning commute slot and in the afternoon. The morning commute slot, 6:00 to 9:00, is used by 29% of listeners but only 13% of video watchers - a gap that reflects the different physical contexts involved.

The primetime concentration of video podcast viewing puts it in direct competition with linear television and streaming services. According to Signal Hill, video podcasting is a prime-time habit, competing directly with linear TV and streaming for attention in the same hours.

The smart TV experience rates higher than smartphones

Consumer perception of the smart TV podcast experience is positive, and the data is fairly one-sided. According to the report, when consumers were asked to compare watching podcasts on a smart TV to watching on a smartphone, they were much more likely to say the large-screen experience was better. Specifically, 36% described the smart TV experience as "more premium," and 43% described it as either "more engaging" or "more convenient."

Fewer than 10% said the smart TV experience was "less engaging," "less convenient," or "inferior." Only 8% said it was about the same.

When asked which on-screen elements they value most while watching a video podcast, viewers ranked seeing hosts and guests interact on screen first, ahead of seeing things being discussed, set design quality, on-screen graphics and text, and sophistication of production. According to Signal Hill, 39% of video podcast consumers ranked host and guest interaction as the single most valuable on-screen element.

Non-users express strong interest

The potential for further smart TV growth rests partly on the attitudes of those not yet using the device for podcasts. According to the report, half of consumers who do not already use smart TVs for podcasts said they are "somewhat" or "very interested" in trying it. Only 27% described themselves as "not very" or "not at all interested." Three in ten audio-only consumers also expressed interest in using a smart TV for podcasts in the future.

The most common reason given for not using a smart TV for podcasts was "I don't like using a TV for podcasts," cited by 36% of non-users. Among those interested in trying it, more women (55%) than men (45%) expressed that interest.

What FlightStory's own data shows

Alongside the survey findings, FlightStory released internal YouTube channel analytics for the same survey period that provide a scale check on the national data. According to the report, The Diary of a CEO accumulated over 1.6 million hours of watch time on smart TVs alone, representing 29.1% of the show's total viewing, from a total of 5.5 million hours across all devices. We Need to Talk generated 87,337 TV hours out of 270,567 total hours, with smart TV accounting for 32.3% of that show's viewing.

Across all FlightStory content combined, smart TV is the second most-used consumption device - matching what the national survey found. The convergence of the self-reported survey data and the platform-level analytics data from one of the UK's largest podcast networks gives the smart TV finding more grounding than survey data alone would provide.

Paul Riismandel, President of Signal Hill Insights, said of the findings: "The data tells a clear story: podcasts have entered the living room and they are here to stay. This is no longer an emerging trend, it is a fundamental shift in how UK audiences are spending their evenings."

Lily Taurau, Group Business Director at FlightStory, said: "For years, the planning assumption for podcasts was simple: one listener, one pair of headphones, one commute. Our newly revealed data, in partnership with Signal Hill Insights, confirms that picture no longer holds. UK audiences are watching video podcasts on their Smart TVs at 7pm with their families, competing directly with linear TV in prime time, and that has real implications for how brands should be showing up. The brands and agencies that move first will be the ones best positioned to claim genuinely new white space."

Why this matters for advertisers

The report lands in a period of sustained structural change for UK podcast advertising. PPC Land reported in May 2026 that UK podcast ads now reach 43% of UK adults monthly, with 79% ad recall and a 44% purchase conversion rate, based on a Sounds Profitable and Sound Insights study presented at The Podcast Show London. That study also found that podcast advertising accounts for less than 5% of UK audio ad spend - a gap between consumption reach and budget allocation that the Signal Hill findings sharpen further.

The smart TV data complicates the planning assumptions that keep podcast budgets small. Media planners who have treated podcast advertising as an audio-only, one-to-one, mobile channel now face research suggesting that a substantial portion of UK podcast consumption is happening in the living room, on a large screen, during prime time, and often with more than one viewer present.

The device-level shift also connects to the broader trajectory of the connected TV advertising market. CTV's share of media budgets doubled from 14% in 2023 to 28% in 2025, according to data covered by PPC Land. Podcast content on smart TVs sits at the intersection of two growing channels - podcasting and CTV - that have historically been planned separately. The Signal Hill data suggests they are increasingly the same thing in practice.

The UK's video podcast lead over the US and Canada also raises questions about measurement. Apple's introduction of HLS video podcast support in early 2026 created new infrastructure for delivering video ads alongside podcast content. Acast followed in May 2026 with the first integrated video ad campaigns on Apple Podcasts, using State Farm and T-Mobile as lead brands. The ad infrastructure for video podcast buying is arriving at roughly the same time as research showing the audience has already formed on large screens.

For marketers active in the UK, the Signal Hill report provides a device breakdown that was previously absent. PPC Land tracked how UK smart TV ownership rose from 50% in 2021 to 72% in 2025, in a 2025 Edison Research study. The new Signal Hill data, collected in March 2026, pushes the Ofcom household figure to 74% and documents how many of those TV owners are now using the device for podcast consumption specifically.

The 42% co-watching rate is the figure that most directly challenges standard reach calculations. If nearly half of smart TV podcast sessions involve a second viewer, the actual audience for a podcast ad placed against smart TV inventory may be materially larger than download or streaming counts imply. The industry has grappled with equivalent measurement problems in CTV advertising for years - the Signal Hill data suggests podcasting on smart TVs inherits the same structural complexity.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Signal Hill Insights, a media research firm, and FlightStory, the global media company founded in 2023 that operates The Diary of a CEO and other major UK podcast brands.

What: A nationally representative survey of 1,003 monthly podcast consumers in the UK, aged 18 and older, examining how and when video podcasts are being consumed. Key findings include that 84% of UK monthly consumers watch video podcasts - ahead of the US at 62% and Canada at 75% - and that 45% used a smart TV in the last month, making it the second most popular podcast device after smartphones at 80%. Smart TVs account for 52% of all podcast watch time, 42% of smart TV sessions involve co-viewing, and 54% of video podcast watching occurs during the 19:00-23:00 evening window.

When: Fieldwork ran from 3 to 9 March 2026. The report was published on 27 May 2026.

Where: The survey covers the United Kingdom. Supplementary data comes from FlightStory's own YouTube channel analytics, which showed The Diary of a CEO accumulating over 1.6 million smart TV watch hours - 29.1% of 5.5 million total hours - over the same period.

Why: The findings matter because they document a structural shift in how podcast content is consumed - from mobile, solo, on-the-move listening toward large-screen, primetime, shared viewing. That shift has direct implications for how podcast advertising is planned, bought, and measured, particularly as the UK market leads other English-speaking markets in video podcast adoption and as connected TV advertising budgets continue to grow.

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