Podtrac: iHeart Dominates June Despite Seasonal Listener Dip.

The summertime listening patterns began in June as Podtrac says all the publishers it measured saw the number of unique U.S. listeners dip last month, although five of the top 20 still managed to post month-to-month increases in download numbers in June.

It was another month of a double win for iHeartPodcasts. Podtrac says it again ranked as the biggest individual publisher among those it measures with 30 million U.S. listeners in June and 165 million downloads and streams. At the same time, the iHeart Audience Network — which includes not only its shows but roughly 26,000 podcasts from other publishers — had a combined 63 million U.S. listeners in June and 339 million downloads and streams.

The NPR Sales Network, which includes 69 podcasts from public media producers, logged 114 million downloads last month as its U.S. audience reached 20 million — making it one of the five that saw download growth compared to the prior month.

Acast’s sales network moved up to fourth place in June, even as it held steady with 20 million U.S. listeners and 74 million downloads. Libsyn’s sales network slipped to fifth place with 20 million U.S. listeners and 90 million downloads — both softer than a month earlier.

June brought another win for the iHeart Audience Network not just in the U.S. but across the globe. Podtrac says it was the biggest global network last month, with 746 million downloads, streams and YouTube views, a 1% month-to-month increase. Podtrac says iHeart’s total included more than 230 million YouTube views to the 93 shows in the iHeart network that stream on the video platform. That was up 24% from a month earlier.

Acast was the second-largest global network measured by Podtrac in June as its numbers held steady month-to-month. Acast measured 388 million downloads, streams and views for the 68,427 shows in Acast’s network — the biggest by far of any measured by Podtrac.

Libsyn ranked third globally with 277 million downloads last month. That was up 23% from May.

Paramount’s network was powered by more YouTube views than audio downloads. Podtrac says the shows in Paramount’s network had 41 million YouTube views worldwide in June, while its audio downloads and streams totaled 24 million.

Podtrac’s rankings only include publishers and networks that subscribe to its service, which means that some large podcast distributors, such as SiriusXM, Spotify and Wondery, are not included in its monthly update.