The Podnews Ranker Top 30: January 2026
- updated monthly
Who’s in the podcast news? Here’s a list of the people we mentioned most in the three months between November 1 and January 31, and how they’re trending.
We currently have 32,905 subscribers, all across the world. Here’s more about Podnews.
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 30%.
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 | Joe Rogan |
| 2 | ↑ 15 | Rob Walch |
| 3 | ↑ 13 | Bill Simmons |
| 4 | ↑ 9 | Jay Shetty |
| 5 | ↓ 4 | Donald Trump |
| 6 | → 6 | John McDermott |
| 7 | ↓ 2 | Steven Bartlett |
| 8 | ↑ 11 | Dave Jones |
| 9 | ↑ 12 | Dan Misener |
| 10 | ↑ 14 | Elsie Escobar |
| 11 | ↓ 5 | John Wordock |
| 12 | ↓ 8 | Ben Shapiro |
| 13 | ↓ 1 | Taylor Swift |
| 14 | ↑ 20 | Stephanie Wittels Wachs |
| 15 | ↑ 21 | John Lee Dumas |
| 16 | ↑ 25 | Eric Nuzum |
| 17 | ↑ 104 | Ashley Flowers |
| 18 | ↑ 29 | Arielle Nissenblatt |
| 19 | ↑ 112 | Dave Jackson |
| 20 | ↑ 34 | Ashley Carman |
| 21 | ↑ 36 | Mark Asquith |
| 22 | ↑ 38 | Tom Webster |
| 23 | ↓ 17 | Chris Stone |
| 24 | -- | Mathew Passy |
| 25 | -- | Josh Widdicombe |
| 26 | ↓ 22 | Brad Mielke |
| 27 | ↑ 95 | Oprah Winfrey |
| 28 | ↑ 97 | Dan Bongino |
| 29 | ↑ 98 | Julie Shapiro |
| 30 | ↓ 10 | John Spurlock |
Source: We match names mentioned in Podnews’s main newsletter editorial (stories, tips, tech and podcast news) between November 1 and January 31, and compare these figures with mentions between October 1 and December 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.