News Podcasts Hit Record Highs Amid Conservative Listener Growth.

The blossoming of hundreds of conservative podcasts during the past several years is having an impact on the medium, particularly for the News podcast genre. An analysis by Signal Hill Insights shows more Republicans than Democrats today report they are News podcast consumers, a reverse of pre-election trends.

“What’s driving this shift in political orientation? Audience growth — specifically, the affiliation of the new podcast consumers coming into the medium,” Signal Hill President Paul Riismandel says. In a blog post, he says Triton Digital’s Podcast Metrics Demos+ data — which is jointly produced by Signal Hill — shows more people identifying as Republican have started consuming podcasts, and specifically News podcasts, in the last year.

In the most recent survey, Republicans make up 42% of the news podcast audience who started consuming podcasts in the last six months. That compares to 27% who identify as Democrats. It is a sudden and noteworthy shift from how podcast listeners have looked for years.

Riismandel notes that the data shows among people who have been listening to podcasts for 5 years or more, Democrats make up the largest share of political affiliation. “This swing adds some weight to the observation of those pundits who deemed the 2024 Presidential Election as ‘The Podcast Election,’ and cited the influence of podcasting on President Trump’s win,” he says.

Helping to grow the number of conservative listeners is there is increasingly something for them to listen to that appeals to their political sensibilities. And many of those shows are proving to be commercial hits. Among those podcasts with a clear political stance, Riismandel points out the top conservative News and News Commentary shows in Triton’s new ranker of the top 200 shows includes The Megyn Kelly Show (No. 24), The Tucker Carlson Show (No. 43) and The Ben Shapiro Show (No. 42), among others.

The result is the News podcast genre, which had already been the second most-consumed category of podcasts since 2021 behind only Comedy, reached a new genre high in the second quarter. More than one in four — 27.3% — podcast listeners said they consumed shows in either audio or video formats the News category in the past month. That is up two points from a year earlier, and Riismandel says when the growth of the total monthly podcast audience is factor in, the News genre grew by three points — from 11.6% of all Americans age 18 and older in Q2 2024, to 14.6% in Q2 2025.

The result of the changes is that 39% of the News podcast audience now identify as Republican, while 32% say they’re Democrat. Riismandel says that is a near mirror image of a year ago, when 41% of news consumers considered themselves Democrats, while 30% selected Republican. He also points out that the share of news podcast consumers considering themselves Independent is up from 11% in Q1 of this year to 13% in Q2.

“While we’ve also seen an increase of Republicans in the overall podcast audience, the shift has been less pronounced,” Riismandel says. Among all podcast consumers, Democrats’ 34% share is nearly tied with a 32% share for Republicans, with Independents making up 16% of podcasting’s overall audience.

Even with the influx of right-leaning listeners, in the new Triton Digital top 200 Ranker, mainstream news podcasts like The Daily (No. 2), NPR News Now (No. 16), Up First from NPR (No. 35), and BBC’s Global News Podcast (No. 36) still hold strong. And several left-leaning podcasts, like Pod Save America (No. 19), The Meidas Touch (No. 26) and The Bulwark Podcast (No. 71) are also hits.

Riismandel says research has shown the News audience has some notable differences compared to the general podcast audience, especially for advertisers. They tend to be more affluent, better educated and a senior decision maker in their job. The latest Demos+ survey results also indicate that News podcast consumers are more tuned in to podcast ads.

Signal Hill asked respondents questions about 10 top podcast advertisers, including verticals like retail, telecom, financial services, automotive, B2B and electronics. It finds the News consumer was 22% more likely to say they remember hearing a podcast ad for a brand in those categories.

“That’s because News podcast consumers are seeking knowledge, and fresh, deep perspectives from their podcasts,” Riismandel says. Compared to average, the data shows say are more likely to say they turn to podcasts to “become more knowledgeable” (+28%), “get a point of view I wouldn’t hear on other media” (+41%), and “get a deeper perspective on news and current events” (+52%).