Amy Poehler makes the top 50 US podcasts

• Edison Podcast Metrics released the top 50 US podcasts for Q2/2025. The top 5 is unchanged. Amy Poehler’s Good Hang is new in the top 50 (it debuted in mid-March). The Dan Bongino Show is the highest faller, now out of the top 50 after Bongino was replaced by Vince Coglianese.

  • Our list includes podcast hosting companies. Spotify’s Megaphone host 20, Simplecast from SiriusXM host 12, ART19 and Omny Studio host 5.
  • One notable change: Edison Podcast Metrics rankings now “incorporate data from people whose sole podcast consumption in the past week was through video”.

• Riverside has quietly added podcast hosting, in beta, for its paying Pro or Enterprise users. Riverside uses RSS, so it’ll go everywhere RSS does.

  • More technical details below in The Tech Stuff.

• What happens when one podcast has a very similar name to another - and they’re recording in the same building? Much confusion - particularly for one guest who gets taken into the wrong podcast studio. Brazil’s Camila Fremder, a writer and social media personality, thought she was appearing on the Venus Podcast: but accidentally took part in Vênus Day Talks instead. The smaller podcast is delighted; the bigger one is talking about legal action.

• A new tool, PodtoBook.ai, has launched to help podcasters transform their episodes into professionally structured books.

• The Radcast Network has signed The Modern British History Podcast. The show explores the intricate political and domestic policy history of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 2010.

• British train company LNER has launched a special podcast for the kids that travel with them. LNER Kids Club is made with UK kids radio station Fun Kids, and features stories, interviews, games, and fun facts tailored for young listeners.

• The Rest is Football has launches a fantasy football game called The Players Lounge. The show is made by Goalhanger.

  • Co-founder of Goalhanger, Jack Davenport, will be speaking at Podcast Movement in Dallas. Podnews readers get money off selected passes. And, since we mentioned her above, here’s Amy Poehler and Jenna Weiss-Berman at Podcast Movement last year.

The Tech Stuff - with RSS.com

It’s not every day that a podcast host launches that might be a top five podcast hosting company relatively soon. They’ve not yet press-released it, so let’s dive into Riverside’s hosting and see what we can learn.

• Podcasts hosted on Riverside all declare the new podcast namespace (aka “Podcasting 2.0”), but transcripts or other new features aren’t yet used. RSS feeds of all shows also appear to hard-code their show website address to Riverside’s.
• In 2024, Spotify announced an integration with Riverside which included a method for Riverside users to manually upload video to Spotify. Riverside’s podcast hosting service appears not to be able to automatically upload video to Spotify yet: though we’re unaware of any podcast host with that capability apart from the still-in-beta FlightCast.
• Shows using Riverside hosting include Go Get It with Rob Butler, Next Phase Podcast, Ctrl Alt Podcast, Podcasters of America, These Can’t Be My Kids, and Auch bei New Work wird geweint. It’s growing fast, though - by Saturday at 22:00 UTC, there were 82 shows in the Podcast Index (all of which were also in Apple Podcasts). It’s likely there are many more.
• Riverside’s RSS feeds don’t set open CORS headers. Audio URLs use Cloudflare for an initial analytics redirect; but the audio itself is hosted on Amazon S3 via Amazon Cloudfront, like the vast majority of podcast hosts.
• Audio files don’t contain any ID3 information; though podcasters who make the audio files in Riverside should note that the downloaded audio filename contains the name of your “studio” in Riverside, which may be your real name.
• Most of the audio files appear to be in mono, and use VBR - variable bitrate. This has been known to break scrubbing and chapter syncing in some podcast players in the past, and makes it harder to reliably “stream” a show (rather than download first).
• They’ve been working on this for a while. The first show we can see published by Riverside was this audio book, first published on Jan 28, though the current episode date is later. The earliest Riverside episode with a date set is within this test show, published on Feb 21.
• The OPAWG list of podcast hosts has been updated with Riverside’s details.

Early indications are positive - there’s nothing like a new podcast host to keep us on our toes. You can’t, yet, move your show to them, though (but you can sign for the waitlist). If you’ve access, we’d be keen to see the analytics, too!

Moves and hires

• Rachel Fountain has been made Head of Podcasts for Australia’s Nine. She comes from News Corp Australia and Deadset Studios.

Tips and tricks - with Podcast Movement

• So, Riverside’s new hosting service doesn’t bother with ID3 tags. You shouldn’t bother either - nobody uses them, they make no difference to SEO, and your time is better spent doing something else (unless you can automate them, like we do).

Podcast News - with Airwave

New on Airwave: The Level Up Podcast w/ Paul Alex. Paul is an ex-detective turned 8-figure entrepreneur. After leaving law enforcement, he built multiple businesses helping everyday people create residual income and freedom on their own terms.

The Acquired podcast hosts appeared on CNBC’s Squawk Box to talk about how the business works.

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In this dynamic audio drama, a supernatural barrier mysteriously appears around the small town of Olympus Dale, trapping the citizens inside and cutting them off from the rest of the world. A group of misfit kids must face paranormal terrors to unravel the town’s secrets and reverse a looming cataclysm. Launched earlier in the year, the show is now ready to binge.

What movies taught you about life? Showed you truths you didn’t know you needed to hear? In Voiceover, Heather Bigley speaks to guests who share the cinematic moments that changed their lives. From golden age classics, recent blockbusters, and even the tiny indie film that barely anyone noticed, these are the films that moved us when we least expected it.

In the northern hemisphere, summer is here and the living is easy. Well, maybe not so easy when it comes to making environmentally friendly choices! From which sunscreen to buy to your next car purchase, your pet’s diet to your morning caffeine fix, Living Planet's Greener Living series shares useful tips to make better decisions for yourself and the planet.