Podtrac March rankers: Stability is an understatement

Podtrac released its monthly rankers for March: Top Podcasts, and Top Podcast Publishers. Each list has 20 spots, and they measure U.S.-derived statistics among Podcast measurement clients. There is never a great deal of movement in the monthly drumbeat of these high-profile rankers, and the March metrics are remarkably locked-in from the previous month. Click through for highlights and the lists. Continue Reading

Podtrac Feb. 2021 ranker: 15 of 20 shows remain the same from Feb. 2020

In February 2020, we called the Podtrac Top Podcasts ranker “business as usual.” The same characterization remains a year later. We compared Podtrac’s recently released Top 20 Podcasts list for February 2021 with the year-ago list. Fifteen of the shows remain the same, with four of the top five retaining their positions. Click through for a graphic illustration. Continue Reading

Podtrac Top Podcast Publishers for January, plus RAIN remix

Podtrac has released the January edition of the measurement company’s Top Podcast Publishers ranker. (See graphic below.) As always in this ranking, iHeartRadio (#1) and NPR (#2) reside at the top. We take an interest in remixing this ranker with an eye to the number of active shows for each publisher. The result reorders the list according to the average number of downloads per show, and average number of listeners per show. Click through for the original Podtrac table, and the RAIN remixes.
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Podtrac Top 2020 podcasts: Two-list comparison

Podtrac released its Top 25 New Podcasts of 2020 list. The release follows an earlier reckoning at the end of Q3 — an intermediary list. We compare the two for a look at which podcasts (six of them) were added in the two months which separate the two list measurements. Click through for the graphic. also — the network power of Wondery and iHeartRadio is on display. Continue Reading

Podtrac Top Podcasts for November: Nothing new; slight shuffling

File this under “Nothing new under the sun.” Or, “Nothing succeeds like success.” Or, wow, podcasting is like every other media category. In the November edition of Podtrac’s Top Podcasts industry ranking, not a single new show entered the list from October. In October, three new shows came in, a reasonable 15% turnover. The top four slots remained resolutely unchanged. Click through for the list. Continue Reading

Podtrac Top Publishers ranking shows monthly drop, yearly gain

Podtrac released its monthly Top Podcast Publishers ranking for november. The company noted that global unique streams and downloads decreased for the Top 10 publishers by 10% from October and increased by 40% over November 2019. This makes sense, as the long Thanksgiving weekend might disrupt podcast listening routines, while the overall category growth over a year made November a growth story over that longer time frame. In the numbers: A large catalog disparity, in which iHeartRadio operates ten times as many podcasts as NPR does, illustrates different strategies of two powerhouse podcast networks. Continue Reading

Nearly unchanging Podtrac top podcasts list illustrates why non-top podcasters want better discovery

Nothing succeeds like success, the saying goes, and podcasting is illustrating that maxim as much as any media category. Podtrac released its monthly Top Podcasts ranker (U.S. listening) for September. As with other recurring podcast rankers, this update shows stability in the 20-show cohort. Two shows which weren’t present in the previous month crept into the September list: How I Built This (#19) and TED Radio Hour (#20). In the top ten, only three shows shifted position, each by just one spot up or down. Click through for the whole list. Continue Reading

New from Podtrac: Podcasting rebounds, and Apple grows distribution lead … sort of

In a blast of information preceding its appearance Friday at the IAB Podcast Upfront 2020, Podtrac/Authentic sent us a ream of data and new show deals. CEO Mark McCrery is scheduled to speak at the IAB Podcast Upfront on Friday. Podtrac data indicate that podcast lilsteneing has rebounded from Covid, and that Spotify is chasing Apple hard in audience reach for podcasting. Apple still easily wins in number of downloads. Click through for much more details. Continue Reading