NPR tops ranker; Dax Shepard enters it. Political podcasts surge; listener demos revealed (Triton & Signal Hill)

Triton Digital has released its U.S. Podcast Ranker for September. Without any surprise we observe that iHeartAudience Network occupies the #1 spot, based on average weekly downloads and average weekly users. SiriusXM and NPR took the #2 and #3 spots, respectively — again repeating the previous report.

The top three podcasts in September were:

1. NPR News Now
2. Up First
3. Crime Junkie

We observe seven newcomers to the ranker in September:

#9: Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard (Wondery)

#43: Supernatural (SiriusWX Podcast Network)

#47: Hew Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce (Wondery)

#112 The Lincoln Project (Resolute Square)

#134 NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal (iHeart Audience Network)

#144 Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes) (SiriusXM Podcast Network)

#150 All In with Chris Hayes (NBCUniversal News Group)

‘Tis The (Political) Season

This month, Triton Digital is calling out metrics related to political podcasts in an election year, and sent us the following bullet points:

• Twice as many downloads come from Democrat-leaning podcasts as Republican-leaning shows. However, while still in the majority of the market, Democrat-leaning shows declined a bit — from 58% to 56% year-over-year.
• The demographic profile of political podcast listeners shows an older, highly educated, affluent audience compared to the U.S. general population. Specifics: 59.7% are college graduates, about 40% report a household income greater than $100,000, and about 47% are 55 years or older.
•  Republican-leaning listeners under-index in the above attributes, and the cohort is 89.9% white.
• Independent-leaning podcasts claim the highest proportion (16.2%) of Hispanic listeners and are 68.2% college-educated, and 62.4% male.

(Triton Digital’s reported demographic leanings come from the company’s Podcast Metrics Demos+ data product.)

Triton provided several graphics to illustrate its survey results on political issues: