The Podnews Ranker Top 30: May 2025
- updated monthly
Who’s in the podcast news? Here’s a list of the people we mentioned most in the three months between March 1 and May 31, and how they’re trending.
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Gender balance
Overall, in this 90-day period, Podnews gave 54 mentions (25%) to women, and 163 mentions to men. In the previous period, the gender split was 27%.
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 | Sam Sethi |
| 2 | ↑ 6 | Tom Webster |
| 3 | ↓ 1 | Donald Trump |
| 4 | ↓ 2 | John Wordock |
| 5 | ↑ 7 | Dan Granger |
| 6 | ↑ 32 | Steven Bartlett |
| 7 | ↑ 10 | Steven Goldstein |
| 8 | ↓ 5 | Ashley Carman |
| 9 | ↑ 11 | Joe Rogan |
| 10 | ↑ 17 | Rachel Corbett |
| 11 | ↓ 4 | Steve Stewart |
| 12 | ↓ 8 | Jay Nachlis |
| 13 | ↑ 15 | John Spurlock |
| 14 | ↑ 30 | Jared Easley |
| 15 | ↓ 9 | Dave Jones |
| 16 | → 16 | Michelle Obama |
| 17 | ↑ 40 | Greg James |
| 18 | ↑ 19 | Kattie Laur |
| 19 | ↑ 21 | Steve Goldstein |
| 20 | ↓ 13 | Amanda McLoughlin |
| 21 | ↑ 22 | Chris Peterson |
| 22 | ↑ 56 | Ben Shapiro |
| 23 | ↑ 61 | James Madison |
| 24 | -- | Jonas Woost |
| 25 | → 25 | Maya Prohovnik |
| 26 | -- | Max Cutler |
| 27 | ↓ 14 | Ira Glass |
| 28 | -- | Bill Maher |
| 29 | ↓ 27 | Wil Williams |
| 30 | ↓ 28 | Sam Sanders |
Source: We match names mentioned in Podnews’s main newsletter editorial (stories, tips, tech and podcast news) between March 1 and May 31, and compare these figures with mentions between February 1 and April 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.