May 2019- Top Podcast Publishers

The Top 10 Podcast Publishers ranking for May 2019 is now available at Podtrac.com.

Highlights of the ranking include:

  • WNYC Studios was the only publisher to see an increase in Unique Monthly Audience in May over April.

  • Average US Unique Monthly Audience across the Top 10 publishers of 8.6 million is down slightly (2%) from April 2019 and up 41% year-over-year (from April of 2018).

  • Global Unique Downloads and Streams are up 6% in May 2019 over April 2019.

Note: As in April, May Global Downloads and Streams reflect updates to Podtrac’s measurement algorithm and are not directly comparable to months prior to April 2019. Unique Monthly Audience numbers were not impacted by this update.










April 2019- Top Podcast Publishers

The Top 10 Podcast Publishers ranking for April 2019 is now available at Podtrac.com.

Highlights of the April Publisher ranking include:

  • Eight of the Top 10 publishers showed increases in their US Unique Monthly Audience (UMA) over March with the largest increases coming from ESPN (21%) and Barstool Sports (18%).

  • Average US Unique Monthly Audience across the Top 10 publishers of 8.8 million is up 5% from March 2019 and up 48% year-over-year (from April of 2018).


Note: April Global Downloads and Streams reflect updates to Podtrac’s measurement algorithm and are not directly comparable to prior months.









March 2019- Top Podcast Publishers - Revised

Note: The Top 10 Publisher Ranking for March 2019 was updated on April 16, 2019 from a previous version. The updated version contains corrections to the number of shows credited to Wondery for March 2019 which in turn affected audience numbers and Wondery’s position on the ranking.

The Top 10 Podcast Publishers ranking for March 2019 is now available at Podtrac.com.

Highlights of the March Publisher ranking include:

  • Seven of the Top 10 publishers showed increases in their US Unique Monthly Audience (UMA) over February with the largest increase coming from PRX (14%) with the merger of PRI shows.

  • Average US Unique Monthly Audience across the Top 10 publishers of 8.2 million is up slightly (1%) from February 2019 and up 43% from March of 2018.





Your Next Favorite Podcast May Make You Laugh…. Or Cry

With over 600,000 podcasts now available, and new shows being published weekly, we wondered……

What content is driving the imaginations of publishers and capturing the attention of listeners?  

Turns out it’s Comedy, News & Politics and Society & Culture... by a long shot.

Podtrac took a look at February 2018 and February 2019 Podtrac data for shows in the 16 iTunes categories. We averaged the unique monthly audience of the top 20 shows in each category and did some comparisons. Here’s what we found:

Content Royalty

  • Comedy, News & Politics and Society & Culture made the top 3 in both years.

  • Each top 3 category has a top show average audience over 1.5 million listeners.

  • The 4th largest top show average audience  (Business) - is just over half the audience of the # 3 category while the #5 category, Arts, is just ⅓ of the #3 category.

  • When ranked based on absolute overall average per show audience growth, the same three categories win, but News & Politics comes in #1, followed by Comedy and then Society & Culture.

Who’s Adding Listeners?

  • Religion & Spirituality had the largest percentage audience increase  (though ranked 6th in absolute audience growth), followed by TV & Film  (7th in absolute) and Comedy (2nd in absolute).

  • News & Politics had the largest absolute audience growth (while ranking 6th in percentage growth) followed by Comedy (3rd in percent growth) and Society & Culture (10th in percentage growth).

  • Sports & Recreation had the lowest percentage audience increase or 8%  (13th in absolute audience growth) while ranking 6th in show growth (63%).

Who’s Adding Content?

  • Business had the largest percentage increase in number of shows in the category (77%), followed by Games & Hobbies (75%) and Health (71%).

  • News & Politics had the lowest percentage growth in new shows (40%) but the largest absolute growth in audience.

Here’s the February 2019 Category Ranking.



February 2019- Top Podcast Publishers

The Top 10 Podcast Publishers ranking for February 2019 is now available at Podtrac.com.

Highlights of the February Publisher ranking include:

  • Nine of the Top 10 publishers showed increases in their US Unique Monthly Audience (UMA) over January with the biggest increases coming from The Daily Wire and Wondery — both at 17%.

  • Year-over-year, iHeart showed the greatest increase in US UMA (311%) reaping the benefits of the HSW acquisition and new programming, while Wondery had the second largest gain (155%) on the strength of new programming.

  • Average US Unique Monthly Audience across the Top 10 publishers of 8.1 million is up 6% from January 2019 and up 42% from February of 2018.