Podtrac: Publishers Find Momentum Despite December Distractions, Fewer Releases.

December brings fewer new releases and more distractions. Nevertheless, Podtrac says several podcast publishers beat the odds last month and posted month-to-month gains in reach and download numbers. That includes a majority of the top publishers, as 11 saw download numbers jump. One in four also had an uptick in unique monthly U.S. audience last month.

The top spot was again held by iHeartPodcasts and its related ad network, which was among those that posted month-over-month growth. Podtrac says iHeartPodcasts had 167 million downloads and streams during December, up 2 million from November. And iHeart had nearly 30 million unique U.S. listeners last month.

At the same time, the iHeart Audience Network — which includes not only its shows but roughly 24,000 podcasts from other publishers — had a combined 339 million downloads and streams in December. It had 61 million U.S. listeners.

Acast and NPR continue to split third place in the Podtrac ranker. It reports the Acast sales network of shows had 78 million downloads in the U.S. during December, up 1 million from a month earlier, and a unique audience of 21 million. But while Acast had a bigger reach, NPR had significantly more downloads — it totaled 116 million in December, up 4 million month-over-month. NPR’s overall reach was just under 20 million.

Libsyn rounds out the top five. Podtrac says it had 83 million downloads and a U.S. reach of nearly 17 million last month, both of which were down from November.

A big drop by “The Shawn Ryan Show” last month opened a path to move up Podtrac’s ranker for the most listened-to podcasts among the publishers it measures. Ryan’s show ranked No. 15, down from fourth place a month earlier. It ends two consecutive top-five appearances for the Cumulus Podcast Network series.

Meanwhile, “The Charlie Kirk Show” slid out of the top 20 after it rose to No. 7 three months ago following Kirk’s murder on Sept. 10. The Salem Podcast Network announced last month that the show would relaunch this week, with longtime producer Andrew Kolvet continuing as co-host of the series with Turning Point USA — the organization created by Kirk — having a continued role in the show’s production.

The big move up the chart came from fellow conservative talker Tim Dillon, whose podcast rose to No. 18 in December. A month earlier, “The Tim Dillon Show” ranked No. 26.

Overall, most other changes were minor. Podtrac reports “NPR News Now,” the on-demand hourly newscast from the public radio network, remained in first place in September. That kept it in front of The New York Times morning news podcast “The Daily,” which ranked second, edging out NPR’s morning news podcast Up First, which remained in third place last month.

Beyond the shores of the U.S., Podtrac says there was also growth last month. Four publishers had more downloads from a month earlier, while three logged a bigger number of unique consumers.

The iHeart Audience Network again topped the company’s global ranking. It says iHeart had 758 million downloads and views — an increase of 20 million from a month earlier — with 29% of those coming from YouTube views. That’s despite the fact that just 89 shows in the iHeart network of nearly 30,000 podcasts were distributed on the video streaming platform. Those numbers are expected to change in the coming months after iHeartMedia announced it would make several series exclusive to Netflix.

Podtrac says two other publishers it tracks globally had more YouTube views than RSS-based audio listeners. That included Libsyn, which had 151 million YouTube views versus 107 million audio downloads and streams.

No publisher had a bigger reliance on YouTube than Paramount. Based on Podtrac numbers, 57% of Paramount’s global consumption last month was via YouTube views.

The rankings are based on Podtrac measurement data for U.S. unique monthly audience for any show that was measured for the entire month. While measurement is free for any podcast, the ranking only includes those shows that have opted in. It means that some of the biggest podcasts, like “The Joe Rogan Experience,” and shows from companies like SiriusXM, Spotify and Wondery, are not included in the measurement.