Netflix is ​​betting on podcasts to become the new daytime talk show

When you’re listening to a podcast, you’re probably not opening the Netflix app — at least right now.

This may change if Netflix achieves its goal. The company signed deals with iHeartMedia and Barstool Sports this week, in addition to a recent deal with Spotify, for exclusive video rights to select shows. The company is also rumored to be in talks with SiriusXM.

The podcasters see this as an offensive move with YouTube being the primary target. The data provides a compelling argument. YouTube shared this week that viewers watched more than 700 million hours of podcasts on living room devices (like TVs) in 2025, up from 400 million last year.

“As people start spending less time watching traditional TV, and more time watching short-form or low-cost, low production value content on YouTube, that could represent a long-term competitive threat to Netflix,” Matthew Dysart, an entertainment lawyer and former head of podcast business at Spotify, told TechCrunch.

While podcasters may understand the motivation, not everyone is convinced by Netflix’s move. Some podcasters told TechCrunch they’re not sure there’s long-term value in video podcasts, while others worry Netflix is ​​contributing to the podcast bubble.

“They’re basically saying: ‘We want to be the king of content, and the only way we’re going to do that is if we scroll on YouTube,’” podcast host Ronald Young Jr. told TechCrunch. However, Young Jr. believes that people are turning on audio video files and letting them play in the background, noting that ESPN has been doing some version of this for much longer than we’ve been able to name it.

Noise in audio video files

When independent podcasters Mike Schubert and Sequoia Simon launched their new show “Professional Talkers” this year, they saw the buzz around video podcasts and decided to start the new show as their first video production on YouTube and Spotify.

“None of us had done a video before, so we thought, ‘Why don’t we start from the beginning and make this a video presentation?’” Schubert told TechCrunch.

Schubert found that his audience was ambivalent towards video, perhaps because he had spent nearly a decade releasing audio, cultivating a fanbase that already enjoyed and expected audio content.

“We did an audio-only episode, and it was pretty similar in terms of numbers,” he said. “So why put so much time and effort into video and then risk loop lag when we can just record audio?”

Young Jr. considered investing more energy into video, but decided against it — like Schubert and Simon, he realized he had built an audience that would rather listen to podcasts than watch them.

“I say, ‘Okay, who do I base it on?’” he said. “And I realized the pivot was going to be for advertisers, for podcast executives, for people who think video is where everyone is going.”

However, there are some consumers who want to watch video – even if it’s a passive view playing in the background – as evidenced by YouTube’s impressive viewing statistics.

Micah Sargent, a podcast producer and host at TWiT.tv, has been working with shows like “This Week in Tech,” which have a video component, for over fifteen years. (Disclosure: I co-host a show on TWiT.tv once a month.)

“The thing I hear regularly from our listeners is, ‘You’ve been my background when I was having a hard time, or needed to travel across the country, and having you there to listen to you helped me pass the time,’” Sargent told TechCrunch. “It’s been a lot of time with podcasts. So Netflix can look at that and say, “Oh, we should have this thing that in some cases takes longer and more streaming than you would get with a typical show.”

What is a podcast anyway?

There’s a disconnect between how creators and tech companies think about podcasting. For people who make podcasts, a podcast can be a conversational show like those on YouTube, but it can also be a format that doesn’t translate seamlessly to video, such as scripted fiction with sound design and voice actors, or the kind of enhanced, ad-libbed audio stories you find on NPR.

“I think this has to do with how squishy the word podcast is now,” podcast expert Eric Silver told TechCrunch. “It means anything. It just means show now.”

For these independent creators, what happens between Netflix and Spotify doesn’t directly impact their daily lives. But podcasters remember what happened when Spotify bought and merged much of the industry, created a bubble, and then burst that same bubble. The impact has reverberated throughout the industry with studio closures, layoffs and a perception among onlookers that podcasting is “dead.” So, when another big tech company enters their industry, they are skeptical.

“In any form of entertainment and media, when companies combine, the people who currently have power continue to get richer and richer than the industry they operate under,” Silver said. “The future is becoming more and more uncertain, and there are fewer and fewer resources.”

Netflix isn’t making extreme moves like Spotify. The latter company has spent billions acquiring numerous tech startups and studios, allowing Spotify to control the entire process of podcast creation, from recording software to ad sales tools.

“I think what Netflix is ​​doing is a little more nuanced than what Spotify has done,” Young Jr. said. “Spotify has blindly thrown money at major creators, and they’ve kind of messed up the market by doing that, because the minute you value Joe Rogan at $250 million… you value them so much that the average podcaster says, ‘Where do I fall on this?’

But what’s seen as an industry-changing infusion of money into the podcast industry isn’t actually all that amazing for a company like Netflix, which is on track to make about $45 billion this year.

“Netflix and Spotify are similar in this way — bold moves to test a new value proposition by targeting top performers and spending money that ultimately isn’t big from a global tech platform perspective, but makes sense for the creator economy, to see if there’s ‘there’ out there.” Dysart said.

Netflix has only made deals with media companies so far, rather than individual creators like Spotify, but Dysart believes Netflix’s investments are just getting started.

“I expect Netflix will at some point try to close a nine-figure deal with a major podcaster,” he added. “I also expect Netflix to take really big swings with very high-profile characters in its original podcasts.”

If Netflix gets its way, our culture will shift away from watching daytime TV and talk shows, and toward watching podcasts.

“Back in the day, my mom would have a TV show on in the background while she did things, and I was definitely one to have The Office on in the background while I did things,” Sargent said. “Now, people can play a podcast in the background while they do things, and if Netflix is ​​the place they go to do that, I think that’s a win for the company.”