Top 20 Podcasts: October 2016

Podtrac's ranking of the Top 20 Podcasts based on U.S. Unique Monthly Audience for the month of October 2016  is now available at Podtrac.com.

Highlights of the October Top Podcasts Ranking

  • The October ranking shows the strong influence of the presidential election on podcast listening with the debut of ESPN's FiveThirtyEight Elections at #8 and the rise of NPR Politics Podcast from #13 in September to #7 in October.
  • FiveThirtyEight Elections is the only new show to break into the top 20 in October.
  • This American Life and WNYC's RadioLab keep the number 1 and 2 spots respectively while we see shuffling of the relative ranking of the remaining top shows.

Visit Podtrac.com to register to receive monthly updates to Podtrac's Top 20 Podcast and Top 10 Podcast Publisher ranking reports.

October 2016 - Top Podcast Publishers

Podtrac's Top Podcast Publisher Ranking for October 2016 is now available.

The full October Podcast Industry Ranking of Top 10 Publishers is now available for download at Podtrac.com. This month sees the largest month over month increase in both unique audience and unique global downloads since the ranking's inception in April.

Highlights of the October Publisher Ranking :

  • All Top 10 Publishers increased their unique monthly audience significantly in October with an average increase of 20%.
  • NPR had the greatest absolute increase (1.9 million) fueled by election interest and NPR Politics.
  • Radiotopia had the largest percentage increase (30%) with the largest gains coming from 99% Invisible.
  • The Top 10 Publishers generated 206 million total Global Unique Streams and Downloads in the month of October - a 10% increase over September.

Top 20 Podcasts: September 2016

Podtrac's ranking of the Top 20 Podcasts based on U.S. Unique Monthly Audience is now available at Podtrac.com.

Highlights of the September Top Podcasts Ranking

  • This American Life and WNYC's RadioLab maintain the #1 and #2 spots while NPR's TED Radio Hour moves up to #3.
  • ESPN's seasonal Fantasy Focus Football debuts at #14.
  • The list includes 3 independently produced shows: The Joe Rogan Experience (#9), StarTalk Radio (#16) and The Nerdist (#20).

Visit Podtrac.com to view the September Top 20 Podcasts Ranking Report.

September 2016 - Top podcast Publisher Ranking

Podtrac's Top Podcast Publisher Ranking for September 2016 is now available.

The full September Podcast Industry Ranking of Top 10 Publishers is now available for download at Podtrac.com.

Highlights of the September Publisher Ranking :

  • American Public Media (APM) joins the ranking at #7 with a U.S. Unique Monthly Audience of 1.3 million.  While APM has measured with Podtrac for some time, recent efforts to co-ordinate the placement of the Podtrac re-direct in all shows resulted in their inclusion on the September ranking.
  • The top 6 shows remain the same and in the same order as August with NPR again in the #1 spot with 8.5 million U.S. unique listeners.
  • The Top 10 Publishers generated 187 million total Global Unique Streams and Downloads in the month of September - a 2% increase over August.

New Ranking from Podtrac: Top Podcasts for August 2016

Today Podtrac released a new podcast industry ranking: The Top 20 Podcasts.

The first monthly Podtrac Industry Ranking of the Top 20 Podcasts is available at www.Podtrac.com, where you can also learn more about the rankings. 

A top podcasts ranking was the number one request received by Podtrac after launching the monthly ranking of the Top 10 Publishers in May of this year.

The Top 20 Podcasts ranking is a comprehensive ranking of all podcasts based on unique monthly U.S. audience. This ranking by audience size is useful to advertisers and those in the podcast industry who want to know which shows achieved the largest US audience during the previous month. It complements iTunes rankings which are based on inputs such as the volume of recent subscriptions and are useful to podcast listeners who want to discover new and trending podcasts.

The top three podcasts in the August Ranking are:  This American Life, WNYC’s RadioLab and Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.

The ranking includes 7 shows from NPR, 3 from PRX/Radiotopia and 2 each from publishers This American Life/Serial, WNYC Studios, and HowStuffWorks, as well as podcasts from several independent publishers including Joe Rogan and Nerdist Industries.

Visit Podtrac.com to view the August Ranking Report.

August 2016 - Top Podcast Publishers Ranking

Podtrac's Top Podcast Publisher Ranking for August 2016 is now available.

The full August Podcast Industry Ranking of Top 10 Publishers is now available at Podtrac.com.

Highlights of the August Ranking :

  • NPR maintains the #1 spot for the 5th month in a row with a US Unique Monthly Audience of 8.5 million up from 7.9 million in July
  • WNYC Studies and This American Life/Serial maintain their #2 and #3 rankings with 5.8 million and 5.1 million unique U. S. audience members, respectively.
  • Each of the ten publishers on the ranking saw an increase in their audience numbers from July to August.
  • The Top 10 Publishers generated 183,433,000 total Global Unique Streams and Downloads in the month of August - a 2% decrease from July.

July 2016 - Top 10 Podcast Publishers

Podtrac's Top Podcast Publisher Ranking for July 2016 is now available.

The full July Podcast Industry Ranking of Top 10 Publishers is now available at Podtrac.com.

Highlights of the July Ranking :

  • NPR maintains the #1 spot for the 4th month in a row with a US Unique Monthly Audience of 7.9 million.
  • Four of the publishers in the Top 10  saw an increase in their Unique Monthly Audience from June to July while the other 6 saw slight decreases.
  • The Top 10 Publishers generated 187,826,000 total Global Unique Streams and Downloads in the month of July - a 5% increase over June.

JUNE 2016 - TOP 10 PODCAST PUBLISHERS

Podtrac's Top Podcast Publisher Ranking for June 2016 is now available.

The full June Podcast Industry Ranking of Top 10 Publishers is now available at Podtrac.com.

Highlights of the June Ranking :

  • NPR maintains the #1 spot with a US Unique Monthly Audience of 7.1 million - a margin of 1.4 million unique audience members over #2 publisher, WNYC.
  • Radiotopia has been added as a publisher and makes the list at #5, replacing the previous listing for Roman Mars. (Roman Mars' 99% Invisible is included in the Radiotopia grouping).
  • All publishers except CBS saw a decrease in their Unique Monthly Audience from May to June.
  • The Top 10 Publishers generated 179,500,000 total Global Unique Streams and Downloads in the month of June.

May 2016 - Top 10 Podcast Publishers

Podtrac's Top Podcast Publisher Ranking for May 2016 is now available.

Podtrac published the first-ever podcast industry ranking in May based on April 2016 data. The full May Podcast Industry Ranking of Top 10 Publishers is now available at Podtrac.com.

Highlights of the May Ranking :

  • "Global Unique Downloads" is renamed "Global Unique Streams and Downloads"  to clarify that this metric  does include listens that are streamed.  The April  Ranking also included streams in the column labeled Global Unique Downloads.
  • NPR maintains the #1 spot with a margin of 1.7 million unique audience members over the #2 publisher, WNYC.
  • HowStuffWorks is still at #4, while the order of the remaining nine publishers has shifted.
  • Eight of the ten top publishers saw increases in their Unique Monthly Audience from April to May.
  • Total Global Unique Streams and Downloads across all Top 10 Publishers remains relatively flat at 168,433,000 in May versus 168,892,000 in April.

A downloadable version of Podtrac's May Podcast Audience Ranking of Top Publishers,  which contains additional information, is available at Podtrac.com. 

Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more podcast industry Rankings from Podtrac, including Top 20 Publishers and Top Shows.