The Podnews Ranker Top 30: September 2026
- updated monthly
Who’s in the podcast news? Here’s a list of the people we mentioned most in the three months between July 1 and September 30, and how they’re trending.
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Gender balance
Overall, in this 90-day period, Podnews gave 52 mentions (23%) to women, and 171 mentions to men. In the previous period, the gender split was 26%.
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 | ↑ 3 | Tom Webster |
| 2 | ↓ 1 | Steven Bartlett |
| 3 | ↑ 5 | Dan Granger |
| 4 | → 4 | Dave Jackson |
| 5 | ↑ 8 | Rob Walch |
| 6 | ↑ 72 | Ira Glass |
| 7 | ↓ 6 | Gordon Firemark |
| 8 | ↑ 42 | Sam Sethi |
| 9 | → 9 | John Wordock |
| 10 | ↑ 29 | Max Cutler |
| 11 | ↑ 70 | Dolly Parton |
| 12 | ↑ 41 | Elon Musk |
| 13 | ↓ 7 | Dave Jones |
| 14 | ↓ 2 | Arielle Nissenblatt |
| 15 | ↓ 13 | Ashley Carman |
| 16 | ↓ 14 | Joe Rogan |
| 17 | ↓ 15 | Elsie Escobar |
| 18 | → 18 | Jack Sylvester |
| 19 | ↑ 22 | Alex Cooper |
| 20 | -- | Paul Riismandel |
| 21 | ↑ 23 | Taylor Swift |
| 22 | ↑ 63 | Neal Veglio |
| 23 | ↑ 24 | Frank Racioppi |
| 24 | ↓ 10 | Matthew McLean |
| 25 | ↑ 73 | Bill Maher |
| 26 | -- | Dan Snow |
| 27 | ↑ 31 | Laura Mayer |
| 28 | ↑ 32 | Lauren Passell |
| 29 | ↑ 33 | Jay Shetty |
| 30 | ↑ 36 | Jay Nachlis |
Source: We match names mentioned in Podnews’s main newsletter editorial (stories, tips, tech and podcast news) between July 1 and September 30, and compare these figures with mentions between June 1 and August 31. 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.