The State of Podcasting 2026
How long are podcasts, category by category?
Comedy podcasts run longest, a typical 66 minutes an episode, and News the shortest at 35. Across every chart show the figure is 50 minutes.
- 11categories with 40+ charting shows
- 50 mintypical chart podcast episode
- 114,770episodes measured
Which podcast categories have the longest episodes?
| Comedy | 66 min | 48% | 7.5 | 86 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TV & Film | 62 min | 43% | 8.7 | 51 |
| Sports | 57 min | 34% | 14.2 | 85 |
| Technology | 54 min | 35% | 4.4 | 50 |
| Society & Culture | 54 min | 40% | 5.0 | 94 |
| Health & Fitness | 53 min | 38% | 7.2 | 62 |
| Arts | 47 min | 11% | 4.5 | 49 |
| True Crime | 44 min | 27% | 4.4 | 67 |
| Business | 40 min | 22% | 6.2 | 82 |
| Education | 37 min | 22% | 5.6 | 62 |
| News | 35 min | 12% | 21.6 | 114 |
Questions
Why are History and Religion & Spirituality missing?
Fewer than 40 shows from those categories were on the charts, too few for a typical length to mean much. They are in the full report.
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Where do these numbers come from?
Slice, The State of Podcasting 2026, from the RSS feeds of every show on Apple Podcasts' top charts, read on 2 October 2026.
n = 802 shows and 107,763 episodes in these categories. Last updated 2 October 2026.
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