Most Listened to Podcasts

Podcasting is one of the interesting trends to take place during the COVID-19 pandemic. The listener base and the number of podcasts available for consumption has tremendously increased since 2020. This blog will focus on what podcasts are and how they function. It will also throw light on the most listened to podcasts in recent years. 

Podcasts are long-form audio and sometimes visual content that is either live, pre-recorded, or downloadable in format. It usually consists of one or more recurring hosts who talk about a particular topic or any area of interest. It is easily accessible and can be listened to when doing other chores like driving, jogging, cooking, etc. Often put up by individual creators, the listeners are given options to skip ads announced, unlike radio or television, or even Youtube.

Pandemic and Podcasts

The growth of podcasts and its listener base is humongous over the past two years. A recent Nielsen survey found that U.S podcast listeners have grown 40% over the past three years. 51% of these listeners say they started to listen to podcasts only during the past two years. The increase in active listeners only goes to prove that short-form content is not dead and that we as humans are not shrinking in our attention span. 

How Podcasting Works

The growing listener base also means growing podcast presenters and genres. Many podcasters have Patreon accounts to help them continue their podcasts. The listeners can sponsor the podcast show, donate to their favorite creators, etc. There are multiple greatest podcasts to subscribe to and some of them have become the best podcasts of all time.

Most Listened to Podcasts

This is a tricky list to make since radio shows, and television talk shows cannot be classified as podcasts even though they are very similar. For the purpose of this blog, we are only considering podcasts that are available for streaming and on-demand. Here is a list of the most popular podcasts in the US from 2021 – 2022, according to Edison podcast metrics.