Drama surrounding the election certification leading into Inauguration Day helped make the NPR Politics Podcast the biggest mover in Podtrac’s monthly ranker of shows it measures. The daily show hosted by NPR political reporters jumped into the top ten, as it moved from No. 18 in December to No. 10 in January. That is a reversal of a drop witnessed by the show a month earlier.
Westwood One’s conservative talker The Dan Bongino Show also seemed to have benefited from a wild month of political news, advancing two to No. 8 in January. Overall, in January, seven of the top ten podcasts focused on news and politics.
The New York Times-produced news podcast The Daily remained the most downloaded and streamed show in January according to Podtrac. The Daily has sat on top of the ranker for 27 consecutive months. It was followed by NPR’s hourly five-minute podcast NPR News Now, NPR-produced morning news podcast Up First and The Daily Wire’s politics-driven talker The Ben Shapiro Show. The iHeartPodcast Network show Stuff You Should Know rounded out the top five.
NPR had the most podcasts among the top 20 during January – with six shows making the cut. Both iHeartMedia and Barstool Sports had two entries on the ranker.