The Super Bowl helped bring a boost to Sports podcasts last week. Podtrac reports they had more than twice as many downloads as a year ago with the show category up 124% year over year among the publishers it measures. And on a week-to-week basis, Sports was up 5%.
While Sports had the best year-to-year growth rate it was the Business category that grew the most on a week to week basis. Podtrac says its downloads were up five percent last week among the publishers it measures.
Overall, Podtrac says total downloads were down five percent last week from a week earlier. They were, however, still up 50% from the same period a year ago.
Podtrac earlier reported that iHeartRadio was its top publisher in January as it topped 400 million downloads for the first time. It marked 16 consecutive months that it has led the ranking of publishers measured by Podtrac. NPR continued to hold second place, followed by Wondery, the New York Times and NBC News.
Overall, Podtrac reported the average publisher it measures had a two percent month-over-month increase in their U.S. unique monthly audience in January. And compared to a year earlier, January 2022’s unique reach for the top 20 publishers was up one percent versus January 2021.
In terms of downloads, Podtrac said global downloads for the top 20 publishers overall were up five percent month-over-month during January. They were also up 17% with the download numbers from a year earlier.