The latest top 50 podcasts in the US

Is there a way to get memorable, engaging and creative ads in podcasting without ruining what makes podcast advertising so effective? In Sounds Profitable with Magellan AI this week, Bryan Barletta insists that we Stop Making Creative An Afterthought

• Edison Research unveiled their latest US top 50 Podcast list by audience size.

  • The Joe Rogan Experience is still #1. Call Her Daddy has climbed, even though it became a Spotify Exclusive in the last quarter; Serial has also climbed a place, in spite of not releasing an episode since 2018. NPR host 19 of the top 50; Megaphone 13; Simplecast 10. The highest new entry is True Crime Garage at #43. The top 10 is 50% hosted by women.

• For the first time, The Black Podcast Listener Report was also released by Edison Research. 36% of Black Americans listen to podcasts every month.

• Anchor and Spotify are making Paid Podcast Subscriptions available to 400m more people from today, as it expands to 30 countries; another four will be added next week. Listeners get charged in their local currency. You have to host on Anchor, and subscriptions only work on iOS or Android.

  • Who Killed Bob? from Podshape claims to be the first to use Spotify’s paid subscriptions in Australia.

• You can now buy podcast ads on Spotify, with the launch of podcast ads in the self-service Spotify Ad Studio. Campaigns start from $500. Spotify has a case study from a company who’s used it.

• Spotify has also signed another exclusive - this time for Bad Robot Audio, a new audio division from the company formed by film-maker JJ Abrams. Christina Choi has been hired as Head of Podcasts.

• Better Help is still the biggest spender in podcast advertising, say Magellan AI in their latest monthly report. ExpressVPN and SimpliSafe are #2 and #3.

• Fireside Chat is to raise $10m from NFL stars and other backers, according to TechCrunch. Jay Leno, a former TV host, and computer hardware manufacturer owner Michael Dell are also apparently using the platform. “FSC [Fireside Chat] is the first Tactile Entertainment Platform and I think its upside is unlimited,” Mark Cuban said.

  • A 'tactile entertainment platform’ it may be, but while Fireside continues to publicly claim that creators own their own content in presentations to creators in the last month, their terms are clear that you need to ask permission to monetise that content outside of Fireside.

• Libsyn announced it has partnered with Samsung to bring podcasts to Samsung Galaxy devices. If this seems familiar, that’s because Libsyn announced this partnership in March with a near identical press release. Anyone can add their podcast to Samsung Podcasts, wherever you host.

Tips and tricks

• The Financial Times asks Do You Speak Podcast? highlighting the way. That some podcasts. Not naming any names. Michael Barbaro. Are Broken Up. Into Short Sentences. To emphasise certain points. It also describes The Daily’s “Here’s what else you need … tonurrtoday” as near-pantomime. And is. A good. Read.

Podcast News - with Blue Wire

In Blue Wire's limited series WR1 presented by WynnBet, legendary NFL wide receiver Cris Carter interviews legends of the WR position as well as the next generation of superstars to understand what makes this position so unique, as so many personalities and stories come from outside of the hash marks. Guests include Julian Edelman, Adam Thielen, Mike Evans, Calvin Johnson, and many more.

Toronto’s Random Order Podcast has signed with Acast. The comedy show from Jae and Trey Richards, who each appear to own an expanse of facial hair, will also celebrate its 100th episode in the next few weeks. The duo have achieved 100m views on YouTube, too. - read more

The Behind the Vinyl Podcast won the best podcast at the Canadian Radio Awards. It’s produced by Boom 97.3 in Toronto.

Two newspapers in Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, have launched Futurepreneur, designed to give listeners an insight into leading business minds and how they see the economy and entrepreneurship in the country. It launched today.

Limited Capacity is the first-ever audio fiction anthology series from CBC Podcasts. Full of dark humour, where deeply human stories are twisted through imperfect technologies (Zoom, YouTube), and bizarre, new relationships are shaped by the weird, wired world we inhabit.

Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, launched Eclipsed, a new narrative history podcast that dives into stories hidden in the shadows of history. Hosted by journalist and executive producer Bijan Stephen, Eclipsed is a show about events most people have forgotten — or maybe never even knew about to begin with — like a disappearing lake in Louisiana, the two brothers whose obsession with precious metal nearly crashed the global economy, and the three Americans who went to the Moscow Olympics in defiance of Jimmy Carter’s boycott.

Today, Slate launches a new season of One Year - which this time focuses on 1995, a year when homegrown terrorists attacked Oklahoma City, a year when the country’s technological future began to emerge, and when a bilingual pop song took over nightclubs and wormed its way into our brains.