Podtrac released a Weekly Podcast Data report, showing year-over-year and week-over-week charts of weekly download data. The reporting period is August 31 to September 6.
The week-over-week download report for all podcast categories is minus 4%. But looking at a year-over-year view, from 9/2/2019 to 9/6/2020, shows a 52% rise in downloads. The following chart shows the uneven, yet substantial growth trend:
Breaking out the categories, the 52-week leaders are News (+105%), Business (+55%), and True Crime (+51%):