Audio drama statistics 2026: numbers on Germany's Hörspiel market

The short version

• 39% of Germans listen to audio dramas in their free time; among 25- to 44-year-olds it's almost half (YouGov 2021).
• Die drei ??? has sold more than 50 million records and tapes and reached episode 241 in October 2026 (SRF; Europa).
• In Germany's audiobook market, which doesn't report audio dramas separately, streaming took 47.2% of revenue in 2025 and CDs 5.3% (Börsenverein).
• Every figure carries its year and source in the sentence and may be quoted. Why we collect them is in the section about zentr.

of Germans listen to audio dramas in their free time (YouGov 2021)

39%

Die drei ??? records and tapes sold (SRF)

50m+

of German podcast listeners fall asleep to podcasts (Bitkom 2025)

41%

Who listens to audio dramas

Hörspiele, serialized audio dramas with hundreds of episodes, are a phenomenon of German-speaking Europe: Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Almost all surveys, though, are German, so the numbers below refer to Germany unless stated otherwise.

• 39% of Germans listen to audio dramas in their free time, and 6% do so often (YouGov 2021, n = 4,186, aged 18+).
• 48 to 49% of 25- to 44-year-olds listen to audio dramas, more than any other age group (YouGov 2021).
• 29% of Germans listened to Die drei ??? as children, and 6% still do. Among 35- to 44-year-olds, 17% currently listen (YouGov 2021).
• About 4% of people aged 14+ listen to audiobooks or audio dramas on an average day (ARD/ZDF-Medienstudie 2025).
• 79% use audio on a normal day, 14% listen to podcasts daily and 34% at least weekly (ARD/ZDF-Medienstudie 2025, aged 14+).
• 49% of Germans aged 16+ listen to podcasts at least occasionally (Bitkom 2025, n = 1,209).
• 69% of 2- to 5-year-olds listen to audio dramas, audiobooks or podcasts at least weekly, and 37% almost daily (miniKIM study 2023, mpfs).
• Almost 23 million people in Germany had listened to audiobooks, audio dramas or podcasts in the previous twelve months as of 2019, about a third of the population aged 14+ (Audible Hörkompass 2019, Kantar Emnid).

Falling asleep to audio dramas and podcasts

• 41% of podcast listeners in Germany use podcasts to fall asleep (Bitkom 2025, n = 595 podcast listeners).
• 30% did two years earlier (Bitkom 2023, as cited in Bitkom's August 2025 release).
• There is no separate survey on falling asleep to audio dramas. Why familiar episodes work so well anyway is covered in Falling asleep to audio dramas.

Market and revenue

The revenue figures come from the Media Control Hörbuch Kompass, published every year by the Börsenverein, Germany's book trade association. It covers CD, download and streaming but doesn't report audio dramas separately.

• Streaming took 41.4% of German audiobook revenue in 2023, downloads 48.8% and CDs 9.8% (Börsenverein, Wirtschaftszahlen 2024).
• Audiobook revenue grew 13.2% in 2025. Downloads 47.4%, streaming 47.2%, CDs 5.3% (Börsenverein, Buchmarkt kompakt 2025/2026).
• Streaming grew 23.1% in 2025, while CDs lost 18.6% (Börsenverein 2026).
• 4.2 million people bought digital audiobooks in 2025, 3.9% more than the year before; the number of listeners stays roughly flat, according to the Börsenverein (Börsenverein 2026).
• Tonies reported revenue of about 630 million euros for 2025, up 31% on 2024 (tonies SE, February 2026).
• More than 10 million Tonieboxes had been sold worldwide by September 2025 (tonies SE).

Die drei ??? in numbers

• More than 50 million records and tapes sold make the series the most successful audio drama series in the world (SRF; Sony Music/Europa 2019).
• More than 150 gold and platinum awards had been collected by the 40th anniversary in 2019 (Sony Music/Europa, via Musikwoche).
• Episode 241, “Meister des Lichts”, was released on September 18, 2026; episode 242 is announced for December 11, 2026 (Europa, dreifragezeichen.de).

The series is aimed at teenagers and adults. Children get their own series, Die drei ??? Kids, which stood at episode 104 in October 2026 (dreifragezeichen-kids.de).

Streaming availability: our own count

Apple doesn't publish which audio dramas are available in which country. So on October 12, 2026 we queried Apple's catalog interface for seven series in 36 countries. Method and full table are in our country check.

• 200+ albums of Die drei ??? are listed on Apple Music in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the rest of Europe (our count, October 12, 2026).
• 42 albums are listed in South Africa and Israel, 1 in the United States (a title tied to a video game) and 0 in the United Arab Emirates.
• About 35 episodes of TKKG are missing outside German-speaking countries: 188 albums in Germany versus 153 in the rest of Europe.
• Benjamin Blümchen and John Sinclair hit the 200-album ceiling in all 36 countries we checked.

Public broadcasting

• Five themed podcast feeds for audio dramas were launched by Germany's public broadcaster ARD in the ARD Audiothek on November 6, 2025, fed by its regional stations (ARD, via turi2).
• More than 65,000 entries make up the ARD audio drama database of the German Broadcasting Archive, which since 2022 also lists commercially produced audio dramas aired on ARD (DRA).

Radio SRF in Switzerland and Ö1 in Austria have produced their own audio dramas for decades as well. We found no comparable figures for them.

What doesn't exist

• The music industry doesn't report audio dramas. The BVMI, Germany's music industry association, included audiobook revenue until 2017 and has excluded it since 2018; there was never a separate audio drama category (German Music Information Center).
• There is no survey on falling asleep to audio dramas. Bitkom's 41% refers to podcasts.
• A current count of audio drama listeners is missing. The YouGov survey dates from 2021, the Audible Hörkompass from 2019.
• There is no official streaming figure for Die drei ???. Billion-stream claims circulate online without a primary source; we don't repeat them.

How to cite these numbers

Name the original source and year with every figure, for example “39% of Germans listen to audio dramas (YouGov 2021)”. The original sources are listed below, each with a link. Most of them are in German.

If you cite this collection itself, link to this page (www.zen-tr.com/en/guides/audio-drama-statistics-2026/) and give the date of the last update shown at the top. The streaming availability figures are our own count; cite them as “zentr, country check, as of October 12, 2026”.

Why we collect these numbers

We're building zentr, a player for audio drama fans, and wanted to know how big that audience is. Along the way we noticed how scattered the numbers are. This page is our notepad, made public.

In zentr, every episode remembers its position, even if you listen to a podcast in between. Episodes are sorted by number, new episodes of your series land in one inbox, and a sleep timer fades out gently at night. zentr doesn't download Apple Music content itself, and you need an Apple Music subscription for it.

This collection is current as of October 2026. We update it when new surveys appear and recount the Apple catalog then. The date of the last change is shown at the top of the article.