In an intermediary report before its end-of-year accounting, Podtrac has released a chart of the top 25 new podcasts through Q3. Included shows were launched between December 1, 2019 and September 30, 2020. (Scroll down for the complete chart.)
This ranker is based on average number of U.S. downloads per episode, as measured by Podtrac among all the company’s measurement clients.
Even though it has been an extremely newsy year, and we observed the launch of news podcasts from major media brands, only two podcasts categorized as News made the list. (They are Verdict with Ted Cruz at #21, and Coronavirus: Fact vs Fiction at #23.)
The stalwart category of True Crime is the big category winner in new 2020 podcasts, with 12 of the top 25, and seven of the top 10. The Society & Culture group placed five shows in the list.
The winning networks in this ranker are Wondery (nine shows) and iHeartRadio (eight shows). NPR, which is the Podtrac-ranked #2 podcast publisher in the U.S. in the latest (October) monthly top-20 ranker of all shows, does not have any placement in today’s new-show list.
Worth noting: Below the ranker in the press release we received is this credit: “This Podtrac Ranking brought to you by: Wondery.”
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