The Podnews Ranker Top 30: December 2025
- updated monthly
Who’s in the podcast news? Here’s a list of the people we mentioned most in the three months between October 1 and December 31, and how they’re trending.
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Gender balance
Overall, in this 90-day period, Podnews gave 58 mentions (30%) to women, and 134 mentions to men. In the previous period, the gender split was 29%.
Context: Sounds Profitable’s The Creators says that only 29% of podcast creators are women, in comparison to 51% of the US population. McKinsey report that women form just 24% of senior US executives (2021). The Wrap reports that only 21% of top-charting shows have a female host (2020); Quartz puts the figure at one in three (2019); data produced for AT&T says 27% of top-rated podcasts are hosted by females (2020), a further 12% by a gender-balanced team.
Our aims
Our submissions page highlights our wish to achieve a healthy gender balance, cover news from outside the USA, and amplify the under-represented. This data is one way to keep an eye on our efforts.
People
| 1 | → 1 | Taylor Swift |
| 2 | ↑ 7 | Steven Bartlett |
| 3 | ↓ 2 | Joe Rogan |
| 4 | ↑ 10 | Donald Trump |
| 5 | ↓ 4 | John Wordock |
| 6 | ↑ 17 | John McDermott |
| 7 | ↑ 18 | Alex Cooper |
| 8 | ↑ 19 | Ben Shapiro |
| 9 | ↓ 5 | Jay Shetty |
| 10 | ↑ 100 | John Spurlock |
| 11 | ↑ 110 | Dave Jones |
| 12 | ↑ 34 | Dan Misener |
| 13 | → 13 | Bill Simmons |
| 14 | → 14 | Elsie Escobar |
| 15 | ↑ 36 | Rob Walch |
| 16 | ↓ 9 | Rachel Corbett |
| 17 | ↑ 40 | Chris Stone |
| 18 | ↑ 43 | Norma Jean Belenky |
| 19 | ↑ 22 | Alex Norström |
| 20 | ↑ 23 | Stephanie Wittels Wachs |
| 21 | ↑ 82 | John Lee Dumas |
| 22 | -- | Brad Mielke |
| 23 | ↑ 89 | Andy Zaltzman |
| 24 | ↑ 28 | Stephen Robles |
| 25 | ↓ 6 | Eric Nuzum |
| 26 | ↑ 30 | Nick Quah |
| 27 | ↑ 106 | Steve McLendon |
| 28 | ↑ 31 | Marc Maron |
| 29 | ↑ 112 | Arielle Nissenblatt |
| 30 | ↓ 11 | Steven Goldstein |
Source: We match names mentioned in Podnews’s main newsletter editorial (stories, tips, tech and podcast news) between October 1 and December 31, and compare these figures with mentions between September 1 and November 30. Jobs, events, press releases or separate articles are not included in the above data. Where two or more people have the same number of mentions, we bias newer entries to our database. Our data does not include racial or sexual diversity.