The Media Monitors Podcast Listener survey was fielded between March 14th and 31st, 2022. Participants aged 18+ were screened on whether they had listened to a podcast in the last 7 days, then asked to list the podcast titles. Participants were encouraged to consult their podcast app of choice during the survey. These unassisted responses were then individually matched back to unique RSS feeds which were polled to collect information about genre and publisher.
Top Publishers from Top 200 Podcasts
The iHeartPodcast Network retained the top slot on our ranker to start 2022. New shows to our Top 200 include Questlove Supreme (#46), Murder With My Husband (#49), Princess of South Beach (#121) and Red Table Talk (#158). Welcome to Our Show (#197) a podcast about the TV show New Girl hosted by stars of the show Zooey Deschanel, Hannah Simone, and Lamorne Morris, also made the Top 200 list after debuting in January.
NPR is conspicuously absent from the top publisher list this quarter, replaced by a number of larger commercial podcast publishers. Though NPR has 3 podcasts in the Top 200, they were not enough to overcome a surge in popularity for productions from SiriusXM, Amazon Music/Wondery, Audacy, as well as smaller publishers including Kast Media, Barstool Sports, and The Roost.
Spotify’s overall total was boosted by several True Crime podcasts new to our list from Parcast Network — Serial Killers (#51), Solved Murders: True Crime Mysteries (#81), and Medical Murders (#150).
Independent podcasts using Patreon to distribute premium versions and/or give listeners a way to support the show, tallied 15 (up from 13 last quarter) in the Top 200. Independent shows (no mentions of Patreon on their websites/podcast descriptions) counted for another 27 of the Top 200.
Top 25 Podcasts from Q3 2021
Obligatory statement about Joe Rogan – The Joe Rogan Experience (#1) is still the #1 podcast in our survey. This is unlikely to change in the near future, as the nearest quarterly competitor The Daily from The New York Times, fell from #2 to #6 overall.
Anything Goes with Emma Chamberlain made its Top 25 debut this quarter, and The Joe Budden Podcast (#21) has regained its popularity after drama surrounding its participants caused a shakeup in hosting.
Both of Bailey Sarian’s podcasts Dark History (#8) and Murder Mystery & Makeup (#14) produced by Audioboom Studios made the Top 25 this quarter. Bailey is a YouTube personality with over 6.27 million subscribers, so it seems she has been able to convert those viewers to avid listeners.
Top 10 Categories from Top 200 Podcasts
| Category | Count | |
| 1 | Comedy | 46 |
| 2 | True Crime | 35 |
| 3 | Society & Culture | 30 |
| 4 | News | 20 |
| 5 | TV & Film | 14 |
| 6 | Sports | 13 |
| 7 | History | 7 |
| 8 | Arts | 6 |
| 8 | Religion & Spirituality | 6 |
| 10 | Music | 5 |
| 10 | Business | 5 |
Comedy retains its spot as the most popular genre of podcast, True Crime has held strong after significant gains last quarter (36 Podcasts in Q4 2021, 35 in Q1 2022).
Notable True Crime podcasts from Q1 in our Top 200: Rotten Mango (#35) from Audacy, Lights Out Podcast (#39) from Mile Higher Media, Murder With My Husband (#49) from The iHeartPodcast Network, MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories (#70), Cold (#117) from Amazon Music/Wondery.
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