There is a familiar feeling to the June report card of top publishers from Podtrac as the top five remained the same in June led by iHeartPodcasts. Thanks in part to the addition of 45 more active shows, bringing iHeart’s total to 833 last month, its global streams and downloads grew one percent to more than 377 million for the month. And iHeart had a unique U.S. audience of 31.6 million.
Overall, Podtrac reports among the publishers it measures the average top 20 publisher saw their unique reach grow three percent compared to a year ago in June. But download numbers were softer, dipping three percent year-to-year.
Wondery also added to its download tally last month when it topped 176 million, up four percent from May. But download numbers were down three percent at third-place NPR last month versus the prior month while its unique audience was fairly stable.
Beyond the top three, the Podtrac rankings are less clear cut. While NBC News is in fourth place in terms of unique audience size – it had nearly 11.1 million listeners last month – it ranks sixth in terms of downloads. And in terms of number of global streams and downloads, it is the New York Times that sits at No. 4, followed by The Daily Wire.
Podtrac says the only real movement in the top ten came as Vox Media – which made its debut on the ranker this spring – advanced to its highest finish so far as it pulled ahead of PRX in ninth place as its downloads increased nine percent month to month, thanks in part to its Today, Explained series which finished at No. 18 in June – up two from May.
June delivered positive results for industry sales networks overall. Podtrac says among the four that it measures, there was a five percent increase in their combined audience last month compared to May.
Among the sales networks, Podtrac says the Wondery Sales Network remained in the lead with a unique U.S. audience of 25.2 million and just over 200 million downloads during June. While that was a small dip in its audience size, downloads were up nearly four percent last month for Wondery’s network, which includes podcasts Wondery represents on its Art19 platform.
Acast closed the gap slightly as its U.S. unique audience rose to 24.2 million last month, up about one percent month-to-month. Acast only releases downloads on a quarterly basis, however.
Libsyn’s AdvertiseCast had another soft month in June. Podtrac says its U.S. unique audience declined six percent to 16.4 million with downloads that topped 145 million. The bright spot was AdvertiseCast’s download total was even month-to-month despite having three fewer podcasts under its network.
PodcastOne, which is looking for positive news ahead of going public, got some in June. Both its unique audience and downloads were up slightly from May, helped by the addition of four more shows. The PodcastOne Sales Network had 5.5 million unique U.S. listeners, a three percent increase, while its global downloads rose one percent to just over 31 million.
Overall, Podtrac reports the average top 20 publisher had a three percent month-over-month decrease in their U.S. unique monthly audience during June. But compared to a year earlier, last month’s unique reach for the top 20 publishers was up three percent compared with June 2022. And among the top 20 publishers, it reports eight companies walked away with month-to-month growth stories.
In terms of downloads, Podtrac says global downloads for the top 20 publishers overall were flat month-to-month during June, and they were down three percent from a year earlier.
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