The Daily Wire’s focus on building new podcasts is paying off. An analysis by TheRighting shows The Daily Wire had three of the fastest-growing podcasts during the fourth quarter while its flagship The Ben Shapiro Show added nearly 60,000 subscribers on the podcast app Castbox where it remains the biggest conservative talk podcast.
Shapiro now has nearly 512,000 subscribers. TheRighting says the addition of 59,564 new subscribers during fourth quarter far exceeded any other conservative show. Other Daily Wire podcasts in TheRighting’s top 20 include “The Michael Knowles Show” (No. 13) and “The Andrew Klavan Show” (No. 14). Altogether, The Daily Wire landed seven podcasts in TheRighting’s top 20. The Morning Wire had the largest year-over-year percentage increase in the quarter; with the Candace with Candace Owens and The Matt Walsh Show podcasts. The Daily Wire also had the top two podcasts by number of subscribers, with The Ben Shapiro Show (511,586) and The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast (378,542).
“The Ben Shapiro Show continues to experience phenomenal growth,” said Howard Polskin, President and founder, TheRighting. “Shapiro’s got the number one brand in right wing podcasting and his popularity is unrivaled at this moment. Dan Bongino is coming on strong, but he’s got roughly a fifth of Shapiro’s subscribers.”
TheRighting says The Dan Bongino Show added 12,621 subscribers during the fourth quarter, good for a fourth place finish.
Shapiro, who cofounded The Daily Wire in 2015, last month announced he would scale back his radio duties. Shapiro’s daily podcast will continue to be syndicated for radio, but he will no longer produce a second, radio-only hour for Westwood One.That opened up an hour during the afternoon drive period for Westwood One to add The Daily Wire’s The Matt Walsh Show to its radio syndication schedule. Walsh has already been capturing the attention of conservatives. TheRighting’s analysis shows his show saw a 50% jump in subscribers between Q4 2021 and Q4 2022.
TheRighting’s report is based on data that is updated daily from the podcast app Castbox, which is the sixth most popular app on the podcast-hosting platform Buzzsprout. It provides a snapshot of the market. Castbox represents 1.6% of all podcasts that Buzzsprout serves. No other leading podcast app besides Castbox makes its data available.