Edison Research Announces Top 50 U.S. Podcasts by Audience Size for Q3 2021
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Edison Research announces the comprehensive U.S. Top 50 Podcast chart for Q3 2021. This list ranks the 50 biggest podcasts by audience size, based on the Podcast Consumer Tracking Report, the only podcast measurement service that measures the relative audience size and demographics of all podcast networks. The Podcast Consumer Tracking Report is the only measurement based on actual listening, not downloads.
“We are continuing to see strong performances from the true crime and news categories. What I find most compelling is the strong movement by some of the independent shows on the chart. It’s a testament to how remarkable this medium is that both large networks and independent creators continue to be able to amass a sizable audience.” said Edison Research SVP Tom Webster.
The Edison Research Top 50 Podcasts of Q3 2021 list is derived from data collected continuously from Q4 2020 – Q3 2021, from surveying weekly podcast consumers ages 18 and older in the U.S. Participants indicate which podcasts they listened to in the past week along with a variety of demographic, psychographic, and purchase behavior information. The results are then coded and analyzed to ascertain the genre, network, and sales representation for each podcast. The relative audience size of each podcast network is then calculated and expressed as the percentage of weekly podcast listeners reached by that network. Surveys of over 8,000 podcast listeners in the U.S. were conducted Q4 2020 through Q3 2021.
Current subscribers to the Podcast Consumer Tracker include the top networks in podcasting as well as leading technology platforms, and is growing quarterly. Subscribers include SXM Media, Google, NPR, Spotify, Wondery, ESPN/ABC/Disney, WarnerMedia, and more.
Editor’s note: Podnews has taken the list as supplied by Edison Research, and linked to each show. We’ve also compared these podcasts with the last data from Edison Research, released Q2/21. Note that the data overlaps by nine months.
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Compiled using 8,000 online interviews with weekly podcast consumers in the US aged 18 years and older. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish from Jul 7 2020 to 30 Sep 2021. Ranking based on listening over the full period. Comparison with Jul 7 2020 to Jun 30 2021; 8,015 respondents. Data weighted using The Infinite Dial from Edison Research and Triton Digital.
The above list of podcasts is available as an OPML file for your podcast player
This is a press release which we link to from Podnews, our daily newsletter about podcasting and on-demand. We may make small edits for editorial reasons.