We are pleased to announce the Edison Research U.S. Top Ten Podcast ranker for Q1 2020, from our subscription product, the Podcast Consumer Tracker (PCT). The Podcast Consumer Tracker is the only comprehensive and all-inclusive study of the reach of podcast networks and shows in America.
The ranker lists the top ten podcasts in America by reach — not downloads — among weekly podcast consumers. Reach is the percentage of weekly podcast listeners who say they have listened to one of these shows in the last week.
Number one is the Joe Rogan Experience, which will be exclusive to Spotify later in 2020. Office Ladies and Planet Money enter the Top Ten for the first time, replacing Serial and Radiolab from our Q4 2019 ranker.
“Spotify’s recent deal with Joe Rogan stands a very good chance of increasing Spotify’s reach, since once again the JRE is comfortably in the top spot of our national ranker,” said Edison Research SVP Tom Webster. “It’s also worth noting the strong debut of ‘Office Ladies,’ which has only been out since October 2019. We are pleased to be able to cover the entire podcasting space, without gaps, in the industry’s only all-inclusive ranker.”
The top ten podcasts in the U.S. in Q1 2020, as ranked by the percentage of weekly podcast consumers 18+ who have listened to them, are as follows:
1. The Joe Rogan Experience
2. The Daily
3. This American Life
4. Crime Junkie
5. My Favorite Murder
6. Stuff You Should Know
7. (tie) Office Ladies
7. (tie) Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!
9. Planet Money
10. Pod Save America
Begun in Summer 2019, the Podcast Consumer Tracker is the only study that measures the entire podcast space continuously, compared to other download rankers which only measure participants/customers of those rankers, or users of a specific platform.
The PCT is sampled continuously throughout each quarter to negate the effects of limited releases and new shows and is weighted to the industry standard measure of podcast listening, The Infinite Dial® research series from Edison Research and Triton Digital®.
How The Study Was Conducted: The Podcast Consumer Tracker Q1 2020 Top 10 Ranker is based upon 2,013 online interviews with weekly podcast consumers in the United States, ages 18 and older. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. Sampling was conducted continuously over the first quarter of 2020: January 7 – March 30, 2020, which does include two weeks of COVID-19 restrictions. All respondents were instructed to enter the names of all podcasts they listened to the week before the interview into an online diary and were provided instructions to obtain that information from their podcast client/player of choice. All responses were unaided and hand-coded by Edison Research to determine actual show name, producer, genre, and other information. Data is weighted to nationally representative numbers for weekly podcast consumers from The Infinite Dial 2020, from Edison Research and Triton Digital.
