Comedy Remains Top Podcast Genre In The U.S. Says Edison.

Only one of the top ten podcasts in Edison Research’s quarterly ranker of most listened-to shows is Comedy – Earwolf’s Office Ladies – nevertheless it says the genre continues to rule. During the second quarter, Edison says Comedy was the genre consumed by most weekly podcast listeners. It was followed by News and the catchup category Society & Culture, True Crime and Sports – the same top five as during the first quarter.

The quarter-to-quarter movement came in the second half of the top ten. Business moved up one to No. 6. Arts also advanced one spot to No. 7. The TV & Film genre slid from No. 6 to No. 8 while the Education category rose one to ninth place. The top ten was rounded out by Religion & Spirituality, which slid back to No. 10 after a No. 9 finish during first quarter.

Edison says it uses the podcast genre classifications used by Apple Podcasts for its analysis. Overall, it says 18 genres had at least one percent reach among U.S. adults aged 18 and older during the second quarter.

Edison Research earlier released its listing of the top 50 podcasts during the second quarter. The Joe Rogan Experience held its now familiar place at the lead of Edison’s ranking, which, unlike other listings, is based on survey recall data. Rogan was followed by Crime Junkie, The Daily, This American Life, My Favorite Murder and Stuff You Should Know.

Unlike other show rankings from Podtrac or Triton Digital that are built on download data, Edison’s Top 50 Podcast chart is based on consumer recall. It asks survey participants which shows they listened to in the past week. While it relies on people’s memories, it also allows Edison to offer a ranker of shows regardless of whether the publisher is a subscriber or not. And the sample size is large. Edison says surveys of over 8,000 U.S. podcast listeners aged 18 and older were conducted during the last four quarters for this latest update. The relative audience size of each podcast network is then calculated and expressed as the percentage of weekly podcast listeners reached by that network.