Women, younger adults and highly engaged podcast consumers are helping to drive Britain’s appetite for true crime content, according to new research from YouGov.
The data forms part of YouGov’s latest analysis of podcast listening habits across the UK and offers a closer look at the audience behind one of the medium’s most enduring genres.
While true crime sits behind news, comedy and entertainment in overall popularity, it continues to attract a sizeable audience.
Around one in five British podcast consumers say they regularly listen to or watch true crime content.
The audience profile differs noticeably from several other podcast categories. Women are almost twice as likely as men to consume true crime podcasts, with 27% of female podcast listeners choosing the genre compared with 14% of men.
These findings place true crime among the podcast genres with the widest gender gap. By comparison, comedy and entertainment podcasts attract broadly similar levels of interest from both men and women.
The research also highlights how podcast listening habits continue to evolve in Britain. News and current affairs remains the country’s most consumed podcast genre, followed by comedy and entertainment. True crime and sports are level on 20%, putting them ahead of health and wellness content.
Previous YouGov studies have shown that podcast listeners are generally younger than the wider population and are more likely to engage with content regularly throughout the week.
Spotify remains the most widely used platform among regular podcast listeners, ahead of BBC Sounds and Apple Podcasts.
The latest figures are based on a survey of more than 2,000 adults in Great Britain conducted between 13 March and 1 April 2026.
The analysis focuses on people who consume podcast content in either audio or video form.
For podcast creators and advertisers, the findings underline the continued strength of true crime as a specialist genre with a clearly defined audience, particularly among female listeners.
