Top 25 New Podcasts of 2023

#1 - Scamanda - Lionsgate Sound 

Amanda is a wife. A mother. A blogger. A Christian. A charming, beautiful, bubbly, young woman who lives life to the fullest. But Amanda is dying, with a secret she doesn’t want anyone to know. She starts a blog detailing her cancer journey, and becomes an inspiration, touching and captivating her local community as well as followers all over the world. Until one day investigative producer Nancy gets an anonymous tip telling her to look at Amanda’s blog, setting Nancy on an unimaginable road to uncover Amanda’s secret.

Award winning journalist Charlie Webster explores this unbelievable and bizarre, but all-too-real tale, of a woman from San Jose, California whose secret ripped a family apart and left a community in shock. Scamanda is the true story of a woman whose own words held the key to her secret.

#2 - The Retrievals - Serial Productions

Dozens of women seeking to become mothers came to a fertility clinic at Yale. A (five-part) narrative series about the shocking events that unfolded there

#3 The Coldest Case in Laramie - Serial Productions

Kim Barker, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for The New York Times, revisits an unsolved murder that took place while she was in high school in Laramie, Wyoming, nearly 40 years ago. She confronts the conflicting stories people have told themselves about the crime because of an unexpected development: the arrest of a former Laramie police officer accused in the murder

#4 - The Girl in the Blue Mustang - NBC News

When 18-year-old Michelle O’Keefe is found murdered in her shiny new blue Mustang in a California park and ride, investigators encounter a confusing crime scene and a witness who seems to know too much. In Dateline’s latest original podcast series, Keith Morrison takes us to the High Desert outside Los Angeles for a story featuring twists, turns and a sharp-eyed Dateline viewer who steers the case in an entirely new direction.


#5 Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus - Lemonada

Julia Louis-Dreyfus wants to know why the hell we don’t hear more from older women, so she’s sitting down with Jane Fonda, Carol Burnett, Amy Tan, Diane von Furstenberg, Isabel Allende and Fran Lebowitz (and more!) to get schooled in how to live a full and meaningful life. Join the Emmy award winning-est actress of all time on her first-ever podcast where each week she has funny, touching, personal conversations with unforgettable women who are always WISER THAN ME™.

#6 - Murder in Apartment 12 - NBC News

Nona Dirksmeyer is a young beauty queen. Smart and talented, her future is bright. But just days before her 20th birthday, Nona is murdered in her apartment. Police quickly decide their primary suspect is the young man who found her – her boyfriend, Kevin. After all, his bloody palm print is at the crime scene. Case closed? Not by a long shot. In Dateline’s latest original podcast series, Keith Morrison tells the story of three trials, two suspects, and one small town where things are not always what they seem.

#7 - The Girlfriends - iHeart Podcasts

It’s 1995 and Carole Fisher is a high-flying divorcee looking for love in Las Vegas. It’s slim pickings in the medical community she works in. But then Bob comes to town. Bob Bierenbaum is a plastic surgeon who flies planes and speaks several languages. Her mom loves that he’s Jewish - but there’s something off about him. He’s perfect on paper but he’s quick to anger and he never talks about his ex-wife. Who, it turns out, is missing and presumed dead.

After Carole and Bob break up she tells her friend Mindy all about Bob’s wife and his bizarre behavior. You see, Mindy dated Bob too, in fact a lot of women in Vegas dated Bob and they all have their own strange stories to tell. Before too long they form a club dedicated to bitching about Bob, eating noodles and figuring out what happened to his wife, Gail.

In this riveting nine part series, Carole Fisher uncovers the truth of Gail Katz’s death, the systems that failed her and all the girlfriends that brought her justice.

#8 - HBO's The Last of Us Podcast - HBO

The official companion podcast for the new HBO Original series The Last of Us, based on the critically acclaimed video game of the same name. Each week, join Host Troy Baker (who played Joel in the video game) as he breaks down episodes of the TV series with Showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann. Together they’ll dive into key moments and reveal behind the scenes stories from the making of this action survival series

#9 - Rachel Maddow Presents: Déjà News - NBC News

Rachel Maddow, host of the #1 hits “Bag Man” and “Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra,” is back at the mic with a new original series, “Rachel Maddow Presents: Déjà News.” In each episode, Rachel and co-host Isaac-Davy Aronson seek a deeper understanding of a story in today's headlines by asking: Has anything like this ever happened before? Would knowing that help us grapple with what’s happening now… and what might happen next?

#10 - Exposed: Cover-Up at Columbia University - Wondery

He was a trusted OB-GYN working inside one of the most prestigious universities in the world, an Ivy League school that is home to Nobel Prize winners and medical all-stars. Yet behind closed doors, Dr. Robert Hadden assaulted hundreds — perhaps thousands — of unsuspecting patients. When it looked like no one would be held accountable, the survivors engaged in a decade-long fight for justice.


#11 - The King Road Killings: An Idaho Murder Mystery - The Walt Disney Company

When four University of Idaho students were stabbed to death in their off-campus house on King Road, the media descended on the tiny town of Moscow, Idaho. ABC News Correspondent Kayna Whitworth brings listeners behind the scenes as she investigates the savage murders that captivated and horrified the nation in the winter of 2022. The King Road Killings, an immersive, reported series from ABC Audio, follows the case against Bryan Kohberger, the criminology PhD student charged with the murders. In the series, Whitworth takes a close look at why these students might have been targeted, how fear can grip a town when little information comes from law enforcement, and what happens when your community becomes the latest “true crime” storyline. 

#12 Letters from Sing Sing - NBC News

Letters from Sing Sing tells the story of a man convicted of murder, a journalist, and the letter that changed both of their lives.



#13 - Ghost Story - Wondery

Host Tristan Redman is a seasoned journalist who doesn’t believe in ghosts. But weird things happened in the bedroom he lived in as a teenager. When he discovers years later that subsequent occupants of the same house have been visited by the ghost of a faceless woman, he’s curious. Because it just so happens that Tristan’s childhood home is right next door to the house where his wife’s great grandmother, Naomi Dancy, was murdered in 1937 – killed by two gunshots to the face. Could there be a connection between the ghost and the murder? Tristan decides to investigate and soon finds himself going where no son-in-law should go, deep into his wife’s family history, asking questions no one wants answered.

#14 - Stolen Hearts - Wondery

Sergeant Jill Evans is a small town cop in Wales with an impressive record in her job, and a less than impressive record in her love life. After three engagements, two divorces and one affair, she’s beginning to worry that love is only true in fairy tales. That is until she meets: Dean. He’s a wealthy beauty entrepreneur with his own range of toiletries. Girl meets boy. Boy meets girl. They kiss and fall in love. Roll credits. But that would be boring, wouldn’t it? Instead, this is a love story like no other. It’s all going so well for Jill and Dean, until Halloween night, when Dean disappears. And Sgt. Jill is left to pick up the pieces.

#15 - High Strange - Tenderfoot TV

In this new investigative series, Lindsey shines light on real-life coverups, and infamous cases, all while leaving the tinfoil hat at the door.


#16 - The Kids of Rutherford County - Serial Productions

For over a decade, one Tennessee county arrested and illegally jailed hundreds, maybe thousands, of children. A four-part narrative series reveals how this came to be, the adults responsible for it, and the two lawyers, former juvenile delinquents themselves, who try to do something about it.

#17 - Sword and Scale Nightmares - Sword and Scale

Welcome to Sword and Scale Nightmares! True Crime for Bedtime. Your nightmare begins now...

#18 - MrBallen’s Medical Mysteries - Wondery

The human body is a miracle. But when it’s not working, it can be the stuff of nightmares. On this new series from master storyteller MrBallen, we’re sharing medical horror stories and diagnostic mysteries that are surgically calibrated to make your blood run cold.


#19 - Strike Force Five - Strike Force Five

Late night talk show hosts Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and John Oliver are teaming up for a new podcast to support their striking writers and out of work staffs. Strike Force Five! welcomes you to a conversation between five rival colleagues for an inside look at late night television.

#20 - Blind Plea - Lemonada Media

In 2017, Deven Grey, a young mother, shot and killed her abusive partner in a remote trailer in rural Shelby County, Alabama. She claimed self-defense and filed a Stand Your Ground claim.

Instead of freedom, she was handed a “blind plea” – an option to take an unknown sentence in exchange for pleading guilty. As a Black woman who shot and killed a white man in Alabama, she did the only thing she could: She took the plea. Deven’s sentence became the final link in a chain of deceit, haunted land, generational trauma, false identity, coercive control, and a broken justice system.

#21 - Dear Alana, - Tenderfoot TV

"Dear Alana," is an unraveling mystery and a poignant spiritual memoir about teenage rebellion and spiritual manipulation, the price we pay to belong and the systems that pay no price at all.

#22 - Frozen Head - Wondery

When 90-year-old Laurence Pilgeram drops dead on the sidewalk outside his condo, you might think that’s the end of his story. But, really, it’s just the beginning. Because Laurence and others like him have signed up to be frozen and brought back to life in the future. And that belief will pull multiple generations of the Pilgeram family into a cryonics soap opera filled with dead pets, gold coins, grenades, fist fights, mysterious packages, family feuds, Hall of Fame baseball legends, and frozen heads — lots of frozen heads.

#23 - The Deck Investigates - Audiochuck

Darlene Hulse was forcibly taken from her home in Argos, Indiana on August 17, 1984. Her two oldest daughters witnessed the attack but they didn’t recognize the man who took their mother. Though Darlene’s body would be found a day later, just six miles from her home, her killer has evaded law enforcement for almost four decades and the investigation has remained cold…until now.

#24 - Spellcaster: The Fall of Sam Bankman-Fried - Wondery

When nerdy gamer Sam Bankman-Fried rocketed to fame as the world’s richest 29-year-old, he pledged to donate his billions to good causes. But when Sam's crypto exchange FTX collapsed, billions of dollars went missing, and Sam was in handcuffs, those who knew him were left wondering — who was Sam really? A well-meaning billionaire who made a mistake? Or a calculated con man?

#25 - Morrison Mysteries - NBC News

Dateline NBC’s Keith Morrison takes you on a captivating ride through some of the most suspenseful and chilling works of fiction you’ll ever hear. Get ready for haunting stories of betrayal, love, jealousy and rage. Each chapter brings more clues, more suspense and of course, more twists and turns. So settle down and listen up, it’s classic mysteries as you’ve never heard before.

#26 - Unrestorable - iHeart Podcasts

In September 2014, 3-year-old Sarah and 2-year-old Jacob were last seen in the care of their mother, Catherine Hoggle, in Maryland. Sarah and Jacob have never been found. After disappearing for several days, Catherine was arrested and ultimately charged with the children’s murder. Catherine was declared not competent to stand trial shortly after and has been committed to a psychiatric facility until her competency can be restored.

But plenty of people - including some of Catherine’s own family members - have suggested she’s faking incompetence, convinced it’s her path out of prison.

In addition to a compelling and tragic personal narrative, this case raises broader issues about mental health and the justice system and the unintended consequences of well-intentioned laws. Journalists Sarah Treleaven and Beth Karas examine a father’s quest for justice and one key question that overshadows this case: Can you really fake being incompetent and get away with murder?

 In addition to the Top New Shows year-end ranking, Podtrac also publishes these monthly Rankings:

Top New Shows of 2023 Ranking Methodology

  • To qualify as “new”, a show must have published its first episode between December 1, 2022 and October 31, 2023.

  • Ranking is based on average downloads per episode from December 1, 2022 to October 31, 2023 as measured by Podtrac.

  • Episodes marked by publisher as Bonus or Trailer episodes are excluded from the calculations.