Video podcast or audio only? The honest answer
Here is a fact that should change how you think about this, and almost nobody quotes it. Of podcast listening that happens through ordinary podcast apps, only around nine per cent of downloads would show your video on screen when the listener presses play. Overcast, which accounts for roughly a third of downloads, does not support video at all and greys the episode out. Apple Podcasts, which accounts for more, will play it but hides it behind a player the listener has to open on purpose.
So if your plan is to film your podcast and push the video down the RSS feed, you have paid for something that nine out of ten of your feed listeners will never see.
The short answer: film it if you intend to publish on YouTube and cut it into short-form. Do not film it to make the RSS feed better, because the feed is mostly audio and will stay that way. Video raises your ceiling. It does not raise your floor, and it costs about three and a half times as much per episode.
What UK listeners actually do
Most of the "video is taking over" statistics you will have seen are American. The UK picture is genuinely different, and it is worth knowing before you spend anything.
Ofcom's Audio Listening in the UK report, published in May 2026, found that 27 per cent of UK adults aged 15 and over listen to podcasts weekly, up from 23 per cent the year before. Of those weekly listeners, 68 per cent listen to at least one show that has video. So far so good for video.
Then look at what they do with it. Among UK weekly listeners who consume podcasts that have video:
39 per cent prefer audio only
27 per cent prefer to watch when video is available
26 per cent play the video in the background without actively watching it
8 per cent have no preference
Read that middle pair again. A quarter of the people who technically count as "video podcast consumers" are using YouTube as a radio. They are not looking at your set, your lighting or your lower thirds. They have the tab minimised.
Edison Research's UK Podcast Consumer 2026, published in July, adds the other half of the story: YouTube has just overtaken Spotify as the service UK weekly listeners use most, 29 per cent to 28 per cent, for the first time ever. Video podcast consumers have gone from 58 per cent of weekly listeners in 2023 to 72 per cent in 2026. And 87 per cent of UK weekly podcast consumers still listen to audio-only podcasts.
Both things are true at once. Video is where the growth is. Audio is where the listening is.
What video actually costs
The most useful research anyone has published on this is the Podcast Marketing Trends report from Podcast Marketing Academy and Lower Street, released in November 2025. They surveyed 308 podcasters across four continents covering more than 50,000 episodes. Both organisations sell podcast services, so read it with that in mind, but the findings cut against their own commercial interest often enough to be worth taking seriously.
What they found:
Shows that do audio and video cost 3.6 times more per episode than audio-only shows.
They cost 77 per cent more per hour of audience attention. Not per episode. Per hour of anyone actually paying attention.
Teams are bigger: 63 per cent more full-time staff, 29 per cent more part-time, and six times more agency support.
Completion rates are slightly worse with video: 61 per cent against 66 per cent for audio-only.
For shows that publish both, roughly 78 per cent of listening time still happens through the audio feed.
That is the case against, and it is a strong one. If you are filming your podcast because you assume video makes it better, the data says you are buying a more expensive version of the same outcome.
So why does anyone bother?
Because of one number in the same report that changes everything.
Twenty per cent of audio-plus-video creators earned over a million dollars a year from their show. Four per cent of audio-only creators did. And yet the median revenue for both groups was identical, as was median customer lifetime value.
That is the whole thing in one line. Video does not make the typical show more money. It makes the ceiling five times higher for the shows that break out. It is a lottery ticket with a real cost, not an upgrade.
Which means the honest question is not "is video worth it". It is "am I playing for the ceiling or the floor".
If your podcast is a lead generation tool for a business with a handful of high-value clients, you are playing for the floor. Twelve people who matter listening in the car is a success. Video adds cost and very little else.
If your podcast is trying to build an audience from nothing, you are playing for the ceiling, and YouTube is now the largest discovery surface in podcasting. The feed will not find you new listeners. YouTube and short-form might.
Four questions that settle it
Ignore the trend pieces. Answer these.
Where do you expect new listeners to come from? If the honest answer is "my email list and my clients", audio is fine. If it is "people who have never heard of us", you need something that gets recommended, and RSS feeds do not recommend.
Will anything you say be lost without pictures? The test that matters: can a listener look away for five minutes and still follow it? If yes, the video is decoration. If no, you genuinely need it, and you should be planning graphics rather than just pointing a camera.
Are you going to cut short-form from it? This is the real argument for filming, and it has almost nothing to do with the full episode. A vertical clip with subtitles is the only thing on this list that reliably finds strangers. You cannot cut one from audio.
Can you sustain it for twelve months? Video that stops after episode six is worse than audio that runs for two years, because the gap is visible. The 3.6x cost figure is the one that kills shows, and it kills them in month four.
If you do film it, "video" means more than pointing a camera
This is where most business podcasts go wrong. They film it, and the result looks like a Teams call with better lighting, and nobody watches, and the conclusion is "video did not work for us".
What video actually requires:
More than one angle. A single locked-off wide shot is the fastest way to lose a viewer. You need at least a second camera so the edit can cut on an idea rather than sitting on a static frame for fifty minutes. Three is better, because it gives you a clean single on each person plus the two-shot.
Eye lines that make sense. If two people are looking in the same direction in their singles, the conversation reads as two separate monologues. This is a five second setup decision that people notice without knowing why.
A set that is not a wall. Depth behind the subject does most of the work. So does having more than one look available, so that a batch of four episodes does not appear to have been filmed in a single afternoon, even when it was.
Audio that is better than the video, not worse. This sounds backwards and it is not. Most of your audience is still listening. If filming has made the sound worse, you have traded your actual audience for a hypothetical one.
A thumbnail and a title. On YouTube these decide whether the episode gets watched, and they matter more than anything that happens inside the file. We wrote about that separately in how to create content that performs on YouTube.
Clips, planned before you record. If you want vertical cuts, someone needs to have framed for a 9:16 crop and the guest needs to have said the sharp thing in one unbroken sentence. That is a recording decision, not an editing one.
When audio only is the right call
I run a video studio and I will still tell people to record audio when it is the right answer. These are the cases.
Your audience is captive and already exists. An internal podcast, a members' show, a client feed. They will listen because they are invested. You do not need discovery, so you do not need YouTube.
The show is long and dense. Two hours of technical conversation is a wonderful audio product and a punishing video one. Long-form audio survives being background. Long-form video mostly does not.
Somebody on it hates being filmed. A brilliant guest who clams up on camera is worse than a good guest who relaxes with a microphone. This is more common than people admit, and it is not something you can direct your way out of in an hour.
You cannot afford to do it properly. Badly lit video actively damages a credible brand in a way that plain audio never does. There is no penalty for being audio-only. There is a real penalty for looking cheap.
It is worth noting that only 37 of the top 50 global podcasts publish anything on YouTube, and just eight use Spotify's video features. A quarter of the most successful shows in the world publish no video at all.
What it costs round here
UK studio hire for podcasts sits at roughly £60 to £108 an hour in Manchester, against £100 to £200 and up in central London, according to a production company survey published in August 2026. Those numbers are usually for the room and the recording.
A session here is £198 for an hour, £328 for two and £498 for four, and the difference is what is inside the number. Multi-camera 4K, broadcast audio on separate channels, a videographer and a sound technician in the room for the whole session, and the long-form edit included with unlimited revisions. A cheaper hourly rate that leaves you with raw files is not cheaper, it is a deposit. There is more detail on that in what a podcast studio really costs in Manchester and Cheshire.
If you want the video to actually do something rather than just exist, the add-ons that matter are short-form clips at £79 for a batch of twenty, and branded editing at £150 per hour of footage. Monthly management wraps the lot, including the thumbnails and the posting, which is the part most people stop doing by episode five.
Common questions
Is a video podcast worth the extra cost?
It depends entirely on whether you need discovery. The best available research found that audio-plus-video shows cost 3.6 times more per episode and 77 per cent more per hour of audience attention, with identical median revenue. But 20 per cent of video creators earned over a million a year against 4 per cent of audio-only creators. Video raises the ceiling, not the floor. If you already know who your listeners are, save the money.
Do I have to film it to be on YouTube?
No. YouTube accepts audio-only uploads with a static image, and plenty of shows do exactly that. It will not perform like real video, because the platform recommends based on watch behaviour, but it does get you onto the largest podcast platform in the UK without a camera. It is a reasonable first step if you are unsure.
Should I publish the same video everywhere?
Publish the video on YouTube and the audio down your RSS feed. Uploading video into the feed mostly does not work, because the majority of podcast apps either cannot show it or hide it. Spotify is the exception and will display it. Treat YouTube as the video home and the feed as the audio home.
How many cameras do I actually need?
Two is the minimum for anything you want people to watch. Three lets the edit breathe and gives you a clean vertical crop for short-form. One locked-off wide is fine for a record of the conversation and no use at all for growing an audience.
Can I record audio now and add video later?
Yes, and for a lot of businesses that is the sensible order. Get twelve episodes out, find out whether you enjoy it and whether anyone listens, then film. What you cannot do is go back and film the first twelve, so if the plan is a video channel, starting on camera saves you a visible seam later.
Where can I record a video podcast near Manchester?
We are in Bowdon, Altrincham, fifteen minutes from Manchester Airport, about thirty minutes from the city centre, with free parking at the door. There are pages for Manchester, Altrincham, Sale, Wilmslow and Stockport with the travel detail for each.
Still not sure?
Tell me what the podcast is for and who you want listening, and I will tell you whether filming it is worth your money. Sometimes the answer is no. Book a free 15-minute call, or go deeper on format and distribution with consultancy at £99 an hour.
Written by Morgan Goodsmith, thirteen years behind a camera with credits across Netflix, Disney, the BBC and ITV, now running Cheshire Podcast Studio in Bowdon, Altrincham. Sources: Ofcom, Audio Listening in the UK 2026; Edison Research at SSRS, The UK Podcast Consumer 2026; Podcast Marketing Academy and Lower Street, Podcast Marketing Trends 2025; Podnews on video support in podcast apps, December 2025.