Comedy had the best showing last week among Podtrac publishers. The company says among the companies and shows it measures, Comedy podcast downloads increased four percent week-to-week. The genre was also up 37% compared to the same period a year earlier.
Other categories seeing a bump last week included Sports (+2%), Arts (+2%), News (+1%), and Health & Fitness (+1%). Business had the biggest decline of the week, with its downloads sliding 13% week-to-week. Also losing ground were History (-6%), Science (-2%), Society & Culture (-1%), and True Crime (-1%). But the silver lining for all but Society & Culture was that downloads in those genres were up versus a year ago.
Podtrac says downloads overall were down one percent last week among the publishes it tracks. They were flat over the corresponding period last year, however.
Podtrac reported earlier that during the month of October iHeartRadio had the most global streams and downloads with a tally of 321 million, which was a 14% month-to-month increase. NPR ranked second, followed by Wondery, the New York times, and ABC/ESPN parent the Walt Disney Company.
Overall, Podtrac says global downloads for the top 20 were up nine percent during October compared to a month earlier. But with more of the world open versus last fall, it notes downloads were down nine percent year-over-year.
Podtrac also reports only one of the top 20 publishers posted a decline in their unique monthly U.S. audience in October compared to September – the rest were either up or flat. It reports the average publisher had a seven percent month-over-month increase in their U.S. unique monthly audience last month, reversing a similarly-sized drop a month earlier. They were also up one percent versus a year ago.