The top five shows remained the same on Podtrac’s monthly ranking of the most listened-to podcasts. But there were more moves up and down than normal during April -- including a series that made its debut in the ranker inside the top ten.
The New York Times-produced The Daily held onto the top spot among the shows measured by Podtrac. It was followed by NPR’s hourly five-minute podcast NPR News Now and the public radio network’s morning news podcast Up First in third. The NBC News podcast Dateline NBC came in at No. 4 and The Daily Wire’s conservative talk The Ben Shapiro Show was at No. 5.
But it was Exactly Right Media’s My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark that had the highest debut of April. It came in at No. 6 last month after Exactly Right Media signed on to Podtrac’s roster of measured publishers. The top ten ranking likely put smiles on the faces of Amazon executives, who signed a licensing deal with the crime podcast in February. Under the reported $100 million deal, Amazon Music and Wondery apps have a one-week exclusive distribution window for My Favorite Murder episodes.
The addition of My Favorite Murder knocked Bartstool Sports’ Pardon My Take out of the top ten during April. It was one of nine shows in the top 20 that lost ground last month. Podtrac says CNN Audio’s 5 Things and NPR’s Fresh Air both slid four positions, while Fox News Radio’s on-demand version of its hourly newscast dropped three.
For a second consecutive month, the biggest winner among the top 20 shows measured by Podtrac was PodcastOne’s The Jordan Harbinger Show, which jumped three to No. 13. That followed a six-spot leap during March.
Overall, NPR had the most shows in the top 20 with five podcasts making the grade. No other publisher had more than one show in the ranker.
Podtrac says global downloads for the top 20 publishers overall declined five percent month-over-month during April. But they were up 31% compared to the download numbers from a year earlier.