The end of summer free time met up with a return to more regular commutes to work and school, and those cross currents resulted in some mixed results in Podtrac’s monthly update of podcast listening. Among the publishers it measures, Podtrac says a majority 13 of the top 20 had increases in their unique monthly audience in September compared to August. But just nine had increases in download numbers month-to-month, which may have been a result of having less time to listen during what can be a hectic month of return to regular routines.
Podtrac says iHeartMedia remained at the head of its rankings for both individual publishers and for sales networks in the U.S. and worldwide in August among the publishers it measures. Among publishers, iHeartPodcasts had the biggest reach with a unique reach in the U.S. during August, with 30.6 million listeners, and downloads of 166 million. The Walt Disney Company — whose shows include those produced by ABC News and ESPN — remained the second biggest individual publisher last month. Disney had 9 million unique listeners and 29.1 million downloads.
Among the sales networks measured by Podtrac, the iHeart Audience Network led in the U.S. with 364 million downloads to the 31,169 shows that its reps to advertisers around the globe and 69 million unique listeners. Libsyn ranked second, with 23 million unique listeners. It was followed by Wondery with nearly 23 million — enough to pull ahead of NPR, which had nearly 21 million listeners last month. And Acast had 19.7 million.
Podtrac’s ranking of global publishers and ad networks shows three of the eight global networks it measures had month-to-month audience growth and more downloads in September as compared to August.
The iHeart Audience Network, which had nearly 748 million global streams, downloads and video views around the world in September, again led the ranking by a wide margin despite a 3% dip month-to-month. That included about 160 million YouTube views for the 57 podcasts in the iHeart network that also make their shows available on the streaming viewing service.
Acast held second place, and it was one of the few networks that had month-to-month audience growth. Acast had nearly 366 million global streams and downloads in September, up 7% from a month earlier.
Third place Libsyn was also up 7% in September as it had 245 million global downloads, streams and views, including 126 million coming from YouTube shows.
Paramount was the fifth-biggest global podcast network overall during September, but it once again ranked third in terms of YouTube views. Podtrac says Paramount’s 32 podcasts available on the video site had a combined 37 million views last month.
Podtrac says the New York Times’ morning news series The Daily was the most listened-to podcast in July among the publishers it measures. It was followed by NPR’s on-demand hourly newscast, and NPR’s morning news series Up First, with Dateline NBC and The Dan Bongino Show rounding out the top five.
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