Podcast Audience Growth Continues In September.

Podcast audience growth continued into September, with a majority of publishers measured by Podtrac posting monthly audience gains, while iHeart maintained its commanding lead and several networks made significant moves up the rankings.

Podtrac says 11 of its 19 U.S. ranking participants increased their unique monthly audience in September vs. August, while eight recorded gains in downloads and streams. The results follow August’s particularly strong performance, when 18 publishers reported audience growth.

The iHeart Audience Network remained the largest podcast publisher measured by Podtrac, reaching 57.6 million U.S. monthly listeners. While that was down about 2% from August, its downloads and streams jumped 7% to 285.6 million. Meanwhile, iHeartPodcasts held the No. 2 position with 32 million monthly listeners, up nearly 3% from August. Its downloads and streams rose 8% to 162.3 million.

NPR Sales Network remained third with 18 million monthly listeners and 93.7 million downloads and streams, followed by Libsyn with 12.7 million listeners and 42.3 million downloads.

The biggest movement in the top five came from The Walt Disney Company, which climbed two positions to No. 5. Its monthly audience increased to 6.9 million, up nearly 3% from August, while downloads and streams grew by nearly 7% to 23.7 million.

Vox Media slipped one position to sixth, while Barstool Sports made one of the month’s biggest moves, jumping three spots to No. 7. PodcastOne ranked eighth, followed by Fox Audio Network and DailyWire+.

At the individual show level, “Crime Junkie” continued its run atop the Podtrac rankings, holding the No. 1 position for a fourth consecutive month. The Audiochuck true-crime podcast first took the top spot in June and has held it ever since. “The Daily” remained second, followed by “NPR News Now,” “Up First from NPR,” “Dateline NBC” and “Fox News Hourly Update.”

The first nine positions were unchanged from August. “This American Life” moved up one position to No. 10, displacing “Stuff You Should Know,” which slipped to No. 11.

The biggest climber in the top 20 was DailyWire’s “Morning Wire,” which jumped six positions to No. 19. ABC News’ “20/20” also posted a strong gain, rising three places to No. 17, while “My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark” climbed three to No. 15.

Podtrac’s Global Multi-Channel Publishers & Networks Ranking continues to demonstrate how video is reshaping the podcast business, even as audio remains the primary distribution channel for some of the industry’s largest networks.

The iHeart Audience Network maintained its No. 1 global position with 529.1 million combined downloads, streams and views of full podcast episodes in September, up about 4% from August. Audio accounted for 457 million of that total, while video contributed 72.1 million.

Meidas Media Network remained second globally with 142.3 million full-episode downloads, streams and views. Video continued to dominate its distribution, accounting for 130.7 million, or nearly 92% of its total. NPR Sales Network ranked third with 108.1 million audio downloads and streams.

Sonoro Global Media Corp. made one of the largest moves in the global top 10, climbing two positions to No. 4 with 62 million combined full-episode downloads, streams and views, up nearly 56% from August. Libsyn slipped to fifth, followed by Paramount, DailyWire+, Disney, Barstool Sports and Fox Audio Network.

Barstool’s global performance was particularly strong. Its full-episode total increased about 35% to 30.3 million, lifting it two positions to No. 9. The Volume also climbed one spot to No. 11 as its combined full-episode total jumped nearly 29% to 24.3 million.

For several publishers, video now represents most of their full-episode distribution. Paramount generated 33 million video views and streams vs. 16.1 million audio downloads, putting video at roughly 67% of its total. The Volume generated 14.3 million video views and streams vs. 10 million audio downloads, making video responsible for about 59% of its total. DailyWire+ also remained majority video, with 22.1 million video views and streams vs. 19.3 million audio downloads.