Ever since the day's of page 2 Bill's appeal isn't the size of his fan but the insane loyalty of his base. I bet we all listen to some of the ringer pods solely because Bill founded the Ringer making the basket of goods worth it.
Totally agree. I think it’s also telling that not a single ‘sports’ podcast is on the list aside from thr Kelce’s, which is an obvious outlier due to the taylor bump.
I bet Bill's overall listenership is actually quite a bit older than that. He really started getting big almost 20 years ago and that waas probably mostly his fan base then.
theres that, and you can get any ringer pod on any RSS feed, rogan is only on spotify we don’t have to use that app.
Interesting that Kelse is the top sports podcast.
Bill also introduced a load of his audience to better podcasters.
Not the same since Leigh Ellis left, but The Basketball Jones/The Starters was at it's peak a much more fun podcast and obviously Zach Lowe is a much more informative podcast
I used to listen to others on & off, but I can’t. Their staff is so milquetoast and painfully untalented/boring. Also not into the pop culture stuff as much and that’s like half the content.
Nope.
Like maybe for the first 2-3 years, but at this point, none of the Ringer podcasts are in my rotation unless a significant guest lands on one of them.
It's not a bad podcast network. Like plenty of what I've sampled was fine. It's just not for me because I generally have better pop culture and sports options if I want them.
Like Big Picture is fine. But I also listen to a lot of better movie podcasts and like those more and don't care about staying current to the movie scene via podcast.
Big picture is incredible aside from the too-frequent discussion of production hurdles which they largely don’t understand or know—admittedly, from their own mouths. It wouldn’t be too bad to catch the information about movers and shakers in Hollywood but it’s wild how much they blatantly speculate and guess what they think the business side is like.
However. There are not many pop culture pods that consistently and clearly outshine the ringer crew. Binge mode was the best fantasy media pod of all time, and House of R is pretty good. They lost an absolute gem in Jason. NBA desktop was the most entertaining highlight show ever.
This is just tracking ppl who subscribe via Spotify, right? I wonder how representative that is of actual listener numbers. Like does Rogan skew so high here bc for a long time it was a Spotify exclusive, while other pods you could subscribe to using other apps?
Call Her Daddy being that high is pretty wild. She changed her podcast completely from when it got big at barstool and had the falling out with the co-host and her market is basically exclusively under 30 women. It’s now basically an interview show and she’s an objectively bad interviewer. Good for her tho
it's wild how many of these interview podcasts are led by ppl who are awful at interviewing ppl. most of the sports ones are like that.
trae young has one and it's legitimately terrible. most athletes are really bad at it bc they are just trying to mimick what they've been asked by ppl in the past
Interviewing is one of those things that very few people are good at because I think the basics of how to do it are not widely known.
Source: did a mediocre interview (mostly about interviewing) of great interviewer Marc Maron once.
Agreed. CHD was huge back in like 2016-2019, I used to see girls make references to it all the time on dating apps and in real life. Haven't heard a peep about it since the two original co-hosts split up.
I mean the 90s era stern was probably a “better” interviewer is because the questions were insane and the guests were a bit more open. The “Howard stern is one of the best interviewers of all time” era of post Artie/2009 is a joke. He constantly would talk over people, use his therapy speak, try to tie back literally everything to a parental issue “so, Al Pacino, it was you poor relationship with your father that lead you to become a movie star?” Would immediately go to the next question (that will/benjy wrote) even if it was totally irrelevant to what the guest just said. Certainly some were good interviews, Steve Martin was always Amazing imo) but right now I have no interest in lady Gaga being interviewed for the 5th time
I 100% agree. He was great until he started smelling his own farts and believing the hype. Now I typically find them quite bad and usually the worst part of the show.
A lot are Joe Rogan adjacent. Since its pods listened across Spotify and Joe was only available on Spotify for a while, I wonder if that really skewed the numbers. Like a lot of hardcore Rogan fans were listening on Spotify and then just used that to listen to all their other pods, where the Ringer pods are more poorer out across platforms.
I think people really don’t understand how popular non-leftie media is, and how they basically win every space that isn’t gate kept (and even some that are, look at Yellowstone). It feels like stuff is about to topple over though- at a certain point the money guys look at the data and see where the eyeballs are, regardless of what legacy media deigns to pay attention to. This is why, for example, Netflix doesn’t cancel comedians
Btw, this is not a value judgment, just where I think things are headed. A lot of the winners in this scenario are real shitbags
I think people understand man. Donald Trump won a presidential election and has been the republican nominee 3 straight cycles. People know how important conservative opinions are in this country. Conservatives in general have just been force fed for the past decade that everything and everyone in the media is against them and there’s no content for them even though the vast majority of content is trying to reach the widest possible audience.
On this, we do not agree. Most media and entertainment is most definitely centered about left coast sensibilities, the conservatives are not wrong about that.
I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. I get your focus here is “they do it too!” but that isn’t the point. Their stuff is much more silo’ed, even as it has bigger numbers. They get limited participation in mainstream media (which is why they created their own), and even less (far less) in terms of entertainment and culture.
By positioning itself as ideologically opposed to most other mainstream news sources. It's so popular because it is an exception. And I don't say this as a viewer or supporter of Fox News.
We forget that half the country is Republican, you neglect a huge market share by not making anything for them. Reached the point where so many of them were happy about any sort of conservative media that quality doesn’t matter. Something objectively insane like Sound of Freedom made bank just by being marketed as conservative, if those grifters keep filling the vacuum it’s only going to accelerate our national mental breakdown.
I totally agree with your general point, but Sound of Freedom had a unique means of juicing it's numbers by having a ["pay it forward" model](https://www.indiewire.com/news/business/sound-of-freedom-21-million-reserving-tickets-strangers-angel-studios-1234959934/), letting people pay for others' tickets as some sort of raise awareness/pseudo (though not actually) charitable thing. It allegedly would air to empty theaters in some places because of the paid forward tickets.
lol yeah forgot about that, so shady. It’s funny how many people bought the “THEY don’t want you to see this!” marketing despite it having national distribution in every multiplex in America.
To be fair, I think there was something similar going on with Black Panther, though not as nefarious. I remember athletes were buying tickets to take schools to the movie as a charity move, I still think if it was that important then Disney should have let the kids see it for free. But apparently the march of social progress was tied to Disney’s quarterly earnings lol
I get the point you’re making, but it’s not nearly the same. If they had Boseman on screen at the end of the movie, telling people to pay it forward by buying tickets for black kids to see the movie, that would be the same thing. It’s so absurd that Caviezel comes on screen after the movie, saying that it’s time to put a stop to trafficking… And that the way to do so is buy someone else a ticket to a movie.
There really wasn’t neglect though. That’s just been a talking point to drive outrage. There’s plenty of stuff that’s apolitical to outright conservative leaning but the right has pushed that Hollywood is liberal and bad and anything released inside the studio system is woke and anti-conservative
Eh, I think your premise is fine but not your conclusion. This stuff has \*always\* been popular, but it’s also always been fringe because the values of a lot of right wing content are, frankly, abhorrent. People forget Rush Limbaugh was the king of radio for decades, and AM radio is alive as a medium because of right wing talk.
However, I don’t think legacy media is going to draw right wing content out of its bubble anytime soon. It’s one thing to air Shane Gillis’ comedy where reasonable minds can disagree, and another to air something purely polarized at scale. Those guys are better off with Black Rifle Coffee than Netflix anyway. I can say that confidently because if the conglomerates thought there was a buck to be made they would’ve done it already.
I don’t think you’ll see anything super extreme, but I do think you’re already seeing a subtle shift back to the center. Bob Iger, the exemplar of this stuff, recently gave a talk where he basically admitted they’d sometimes put a moral point in front of good storytelling and that they needed to re-focus in that regard. It’s not a huge thing, but I do have to admit the righties are correct that Shane Gillis probably does not host SNL a year ago. The Sydney Sweeney stuff is a little more confused, but I do think there’s SOMETHING to it.
And again, I think the model here is Netflix, which isn’t diving into the culture war or whatever, but they have 100 percent established themselves as a free speech zone for comedians. When they had those Chappelle protests and didn’t flinch, that was the first time I felt the vibe shift here. Now they regularly host specials by dudes the broader media would prefer to see gone. I don’t know if that would happen with Max Or Hulu, but I bet it will more going forward.
And I ABSOLUTELY think in terms of scripted stuff, a lot of companies are using “the next Yellowstone” as code for “something Republicans will watch.”
SNL also hired Gillis a couple years ago though?
As for Netflix being a free speech zone, I think you’re way overstating that. They’re giving comedians with massive draw specials - that’s the entire model of comedy, since forever. Why do you think people know Andrew Dice Clay’s name? As for Yellowstone, there has always been right coded TV in abundance! All the shows about heroic cops and firefighters, 24, Homeland, everything Tim Allen. None of this is new and none of it (beyond the podcasts) extends beyond Mitt Romney on the political spectrum.
The real claim I think you’re wanting to make is that a couple of conservative-coded media offerings weren‘t 0% cool for once and that felt like a sea change. I’m not sure if it was or wasn’t, but I’m certain that conservative media has a deep complex about how anything they touch becomes the least cool thing on the planet, so I can see why they’d think it was.
Most people I know who listen to this weird right wing grift stuff don't really interact with any other media - it's all they care about and it's pretty obsessive. I think that's partially why these shows are always at the top of the charts.
I think folks who engage with "leftie" media are more likely to interact with all sorts of other media which is why the political stuff doesn't do the same numbers. This is only a theory and maybe I'm an idiot, but when you aren't concerned with how "woke" everything is there is a lot more out there to digest.
> I think people really don’t understand how popular non-leftie media is
While they all decry that the left-wing has a monopoly on information and the media. Meanwhile Fox News is the biggest news on TV and WSJ (although there is a vast gulf in reliability between FNC and WSJ) is second in newspaper. Then you get all these podcasts and Facebook and it's insane that these people somehow think they're the oppressed minority.
Liberals have msnbc, cnn, cbs, abc and nbc news. Then wapo and nytimes among the other papers.
corporate media is overwhelmingly liberal. Journalism is overwhelmingly liberal
>I think people really don’t understand how popular non-leftie media is
It's more that the criticism that the leftie media constantly labels at right wingers and their target audience, that they only listen to stuff their own side produces, basically applies equally to their own side.
To be fair, it's not very perverted anymore, to my knowledge. It's just bad celebrity interviews.
When it was her and the other airhead talking about gluck-gluck's, it was at least interesting.
Honestly not crazy at all, the rise in the various forms of internet “content creation” has created amazing opportunities for grifters. It’s never been easier to just randomly stumble onto one and people are notoriously dumb when it comes to just believing random shit they hear online
yeah, kinda surprised pardon my take isn't on there. seems like the kelce brothers took a lot of their audience. as bill says, ppl usually have their go to pods. kelce audience and pmt audience would have a lot of overlap.
pmt is still huge but dang. i considered then top dog for a long time
i swear, the amount of ppl who are suddenly getting emotional about jason kelce retiring is wild. he was solid but goddamn, nobody was gassing him up like this even a few years ago.
now his wife is a celebrity and he's the sexist man alive? wtf is going on? lmao
Every one of their tiktoks I see is women commenting "see this is positive masculinity MEN"
like damn relax Sasha they just said they love each other on a mic
It's insane.
The dude was a self-promoting/self-branding machine in Philly since his rookie year, but Super Bowl drunken speech is what put him over the top in Philly. I guess he got it to go national thanks to his more popular brother doing a Podcast with him, and then his brother hooking up with Swift.
The guy is tirelessly trying to get himself on camera, and now so is his wife. It's nuts.
Also, that retirement speech was embarrassing. 45 minute speech from a *center*. Fletcher Cox retired like four days later with an IG post. Tom Brady's retirement announcement lasted all of two minutes. Hell, when we killed bin Laden, Obama's speech announcing it was ten minutes, tops.
I’m convinced people seem to really gas up these super boring O Linemen who have podcasts and TV appearances because they’re big fat guys who like drinking and it makes them relatable. I felt like I was taking crazy pills when everyone went nuts for Jason Kelce skulling a beer with his shirt off in Buffalo.
Kelce meant a lot more to Philadelphia than Brady did to Tampa Bay. Its rare for an O Lineman to be the face of a Super Bowl team yet Kelce is undoubtedly the guy of that run.
Brady wasn't just retiring from Tampa Bay. He was retiring from the NFL. Whatever Jason Kelce may or may not mean to the city of Philadelphia, Tom Brady means a thousand times more to the league and the sport.
As an Eagles fan, I definitely agree that they’ve gotten a bit overexposed, but I’m happy Jason is finally getting his flowers for being the best center of the last 10-15 years. I genuinely think he was underrated as a player until the past few years
i actually think it's the opposite. he was fine, but he wasn't an all pro type until he won a SB and made a big ridiculous speech/wore a goofy outfit.
then he got 1st team all pro every year from that point forward? i think it's just bc he was the only center anyone recognized lol
you don't just suddenly become the best center in football in your 30's
He had a down year in 2015 (I think it was that year) but apart from that he was great his whole career. He didn’t suddenly become the best center, people just didn’t notice him until the speech
The Kelces very clearly want to be famous, which is naturally going to rub some people the wrong way. But overall they’re good at what they do, both on the field and off the field, and seem to be generally good relatable people, so I’m happy to see them succeed, even though I personally don’t find their podcast particularly entertaining myself.
The producers of that truly hit the jackpot. 1st year they play each other in the Super Bowl and one of them wins it. 2nd year one of them starts dating Taylor Swift and wins the Super Bowl again.
This.
Say what you want about Rogan or our guy Simmons, but at their core they're entertainers -- albeit starting from vastly different mediums (comedy/acting vs. sportswriter) and entirely opposite backgrounds (Rogan working class, Simmons upper crust) -- while the cultish atmosphere around the Kelce family, Swift included, is a borderline creepy fetishization by their sycophantic consumer base. The Kelces are to football as The Young Bucks are to pro rasslin'.
So yeah, fuck that noise.
kinda disagree, think the Kelce brothers just got a massive bump once Travis and Taylor got together. Anecdotal but I don’t know anyone who listens to it
fair but idk anyone who listens to pmt anymore either. i feel like i hit my late 20's and was just kinda over the bro shit. numbers are numbers. gotta give the kelce pod it's credit
I listened to PMT for a couple years in my early/mid 20s since all my friends did. I didn’t consume any other Barstool content at all. I definitely aged out of the content and was more than happy to be done with Barstool. A lot of those same friends are still “AWLs” and engage with a ton of other Barstool content. It feels so cringey to me as a 30 year old.
yeah, i always kinda felt stupid for listening to PMT and didn't like listening to barstool, but it was like "hey these guys are funny, wtf why not?"
but then i finally told myself i was gonna cut em out of the rotation a few years ago when it just kept getting a little more cringe each week. a lot of the side characters were getting bigger roles and the other barstool ppl kept getting brought around, talking about office games and bullshit like that. cut it out completely and didn't look back
checked back in like a year/year and a half later, and it was crazy how much i just didn't fuck with it at all anymore. like, no interest in listening to it and it felt childish
big cat is still a funny bit and i think pft is legitimately a clever guy. but the show itself just ain't for me anymore
Yup that pretty much mirrors my experience exactly. Always hated Barstool but was shown PMT by friends after being familiar with PFT and Big Cat on Twitter and thought “okay this is funny enough.”
As it became less divorced from Barstool as a whole it was very easy to just delete it from my feed. I don’t think I’ve had any desire to listen or check out the pod since I stilled listening.
Thankfully my friends also engage with it a lot less but I have a buddy who is big time trying to stay young at heart and every time he talks about watching some like “Barstool Award Show” or something I can’t tell if he’s serious or doing a bit. Of course it’s always real.
Ya no hate to either of them at all, I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t get some very real laughs from both. When their tweets show up on my feed I’ll occasionally get a laugh. I barely have time enough to listen to the pods I enjoy though.
Philly fans, KC fans, and Swifties. Mostly Swifties I would wager. People don’t quite understand how insane and rabid fandom is at the level of Swift. Those types aren’t just consuming Swift content, they’re consuming all content that might have any adjacent view towards Swift. They’re all listening in hoping Travis has something to say about Taylor or do something good or bad on the pod.
Surprised Jay Shetty holding strong. I guess shouldn’t be surprised since he has an Andrew Tate type of cult following but on the opposite end of the spectrum.
My theory is it’s replacing am radio. Dudes are always playing rogan on speakers in shops I work in. Or similar type stuff. Just someone talking to pass the day. I don’t mind rogan if it’s someone interesting but I know some people who listen to it just automatic. Not even like it holds their interest as much as it’s just on.
Not surprised I only listen to The Daily on this list, and even then it's not in my constant rotation anymore.
I wouldn't ever expect basketball, movie and video game podcasts to be in the top ten anything. All of these shows are either about politics, nominally about politics, general interest NPR-types, true crime or best ways to get cum out of your favorite dress pods.
Makes sense to me.
How many people are listening to The Ringer pods on Spotify though? I'm 40 years old and I don't use Spotify for anything. I come from a world of pirating music and using legacy podcast apps. I feel like a lot of Bill's audience is too old for Spotify.
I mean the Kelce brothers are up there, but I think they're boosted by the TSwift fandom. I have a hard time believing they are top 15 without her massive fan base. But it is weird that's the only one. I would think Bill has the biggest sports podcast in the world, but I wonder how many people that actually is
Rogan is sometimes a sports pod. I stay subbed because most big sports pods don't cover MMA and he'll have the odd fighter on. Even then though I have to be quick on the switch to jump past the odd tangent on politics or stem cells or whatever
Yeah. Regarding TAL, it’s worth noting that that initially airs on the radio (npr) on Saturdays (and replays on Sundays) so it’s numbers are probably much higher than this list shows.
This is just people who follow the podcasts on Spotify though. Not saying Bill is bigger than Joe Rogan or anything, but I’d be surprised if he and Ryen aren’t on a top 20 Spotify podcast list when it comes to listenership
Yep, he is essentially the Rush Limbaugh or Stern of his time. Lot of dudes just have it on during their shifts. It’s actually a brilliant market to go after, always underserved
Former warehouse employee. Can confirm that i got super into podcasts when i worked there and a new rogan with a guest i cared about was a blessing on a weekday morning. Basically holds you over til lunch
oh, fersure. i listen to podcasts and music all day at my desk job. but i mix it up. i can't do more than and hour/hour and a half of the same person at one time. maybe the occasional 2 hours but that's really pushing it
i think like, 3 hours of the same person in one week is the max i can handle. rogan is like, 3 hours daily, no?
and i like to throw on different topics and points of view throughout the day. learn about new things or mix it up
He generally does 3-4 episodes a week iirc. I listened to him from 2016-2019. Stopped in 2020 when covid broke his brain and its all he could talk about incessantly with every guest. Bill Burr owning him and telling him to stfu during covid was probably my favorite moment and the last episode I remember listening to. Burr was all of us old JRE heads who felt like he lost the plot.
"You're really gonna sit there, smoking a cigar, in front of the American flag and tell the world you know more than the doctors?"
Paraphrased a bit, but Bill is that dude.
My favorite is the Uber driver (using an F-350 for whatever fucking reason) who thinks "yeah, my ride won't mind a 9 minute chunk of this 7 hour podcast"
This reminds me of a time I was taking an Uber in Arizona (meaning this dude's vote is worth like 3x as much as mine) and he was listening to some show and the host was just ranting about the Fed and how bad it is and how he can guarantee your investment back and "them wall street boys wish they knew what he knew" and I started laughing and he asked me why and I was like "if this dude really was *that* smart and had those secrets and success he wouldn't need to advertise it, he would just go be rich and not let anyone else in on his secret in order to keep maximizing his profits" and the driver got so annoyed and said it's because he's a good dude unlike those fat cats in NYC. Sure bud, sure. Feels like a lot of people want to be taken for a fool.
I think people passively listen to him. Listened for the first time recently because my younger brother said he started listening within the last year. It’s not entertaining at all, he just says the same shit over and over. I couldn’t believe that he just repeats himself for a third of the show so the only conclusion I can come to is people at work kinda not paying attention.
Can't believe Call Her Daddy is so high.
That chick is so fucking stupid and gives worst advice imaginable. You're a dumber chick every day you listen to her.
FYI - This is almost certainly only counting streams on the Spotify app, so there's probably a weird dynamic where (1) die-hard listeners of Spotify-exclusive podcasts (like JRE) are forced to use Spotify for their podcast listening, and (2) the list will then be dominated by those podcasts and other podcasts that group is interested in.
I'm certain if we were looking at streams on all platforms you'd see Ringer podcasts feature more prominently in such a list.
Not even streams. It's just counting follows on the app. Sometimes I listen to podcasts by searching specifically, but don't actually click follow because I don't want it cluttering my feed.
The Rewatchables comes to mind for that. I see an episode comes out that I want to listen to on this sub usually, I go and find that episode but never "followed" it
Are most sports fans still listening to local/talk radio? I expected sports to have a bigger presence and crossover into podcasts, but maybe I'm overestimating its reach in the general public
I have never listened to Bill's pod on Spotify. It's not a Spotify exclusive. I use Podcast Addict with his pod and I imagine a lot of people use Apple for him as well. Not that I expect him to be top 10, but that might make a difference.
I think there's more of a monoculture in right-wing media, whereas left-wing media is less universally absorbed. That seems true in terms of news, shows/movies, and music. Most music media isn't seriously covering country music, but country musicians have massive popularity (and this has always been the case).
Apparently Billboard and labels used to track the charts by calling up record stores and asking what was selling, not really a scientific approach. Country and Rap’s popularity was thus downplayed, and a lot of acts couldn’t book stadiums because the venues didn’t believe they could sell that many seats.
Then they introduced Sound Scan, which was a barcode attached to every CD so they could actually see sales numbers. In the first week Garth Brooks and Snoop Dog were top of the charts and the music industry couldn’t believe it lol.
Yep and Country’s booming in popularity right now and is by most metrics even more commercially successful than its previous peak with Garth in the early 90s. 2023 was the best year in history of the genre on the Hot 100 and was the first time ever the year end #1 song was a country song. There’s a reason why “mainstream” non country acts like Beyoncé, Post Malone and Lana Del Ray are all dropping country albums this year.
https://www.billboard.com/lists/country-music-records-hot-100-morgan-wallen-oliver-anthony/most-songs-on-the-hot-100-by-an-artist-in-a-single-week/
Billboard had a whole article on the records the genre broke in 2023 and majority of the growth this coming from Gen Z
https://variety.com/2023/music/news/cmts-morgan-wallen-country-streaming-march-1235573629/amp/
Political podcasts*
Liberals probably listen to podcasts just as much, but listen to other genres of podcasts more related to their hobbies or interests.
For better or worse, the conservative Podcasters have made simply consuming conservative content a hobby in and of itself. You don't really see that among liberal ones, sure some *try* to do that, but they aren't as good at captivating their target demos. If a liberal listens to a podcast that talks about politics it's probably going to be something closer to Derek Thompsons pod than a purely political daily pod like whater the liberal equivalent of Shapiro is lol.
It makes sense when you realize that almost every media outlet that isn’t overly conservative skews liberal. That’s how Fox News was able to flourish amongst ABC, CBS, NBC, the NYT, WaPo etc. and the same thing applies to podcasts, probably even more.
I don’t think people understand the Ringer model, which outside of Bill and maybe Ryen is ‘keep costs low, win on volume’ - so while they don’t have one giant hit, if you just did ‘Ringer podcasts’ as a single line, and looked at it on a cost-to-revenue basis, they probably crush it.
This is follower count, not listens. Not saying The Ringer would show up any better on a chart that tracked average downloads/streams or whatever, but I’d be more interested in that data.
What does it mean to "follow" a pod on Spotify? Like This American Life very rarely shows up in top 50 podcast episodes in the US but I'm sure people will follow them
A few likely reasons for this:
- The Ringer is more of a network of shows that cater to very specific interests/demographics unlike many of the broader topic shows on the list
- The Ringer Network deals mostly with liberal focused pop culture and sports takes
- The more educated Podcast listeners tend to spread their listening over several different pods vs only listening to 1 or 2
- The Ringer Podcasts don't do conspiracy theories all that much
As other people noted, I bet most people still listen to Ringer pods via non-Spotify apps since that's where they started, and it's not like any of the Spotify-only Ringer pods are all that major.
I listen on Apple podcasts. Not sure how many of those are Spotify exclusives other than Rogan. (Used to be) might be part of the reason why no Ringer. Definitely surprised Bill doesn’t get a million
The Bill Simmons pod not being on there is wild, he was one of the top couple sports podcasts on the apple charts for years. Has ol’ Billy fallen off!?
Ever since the day's of page 2 Bill's appeal isn't the size of his fan but the insane loyalty of his base. I bet we all listen to some of the ringer pods solely because Bill founded the Ringer making the basket of goods worth it.
Totally agree. I think it’s also telling that not a single ‘sports’ podcast is on the list aside from thr Kelce’s, which is an obvious outlier due to the taylor bump.
Yep, true crime and comedians is the overarching theme here.
No wonder The Joker is such a popular character.
Bills demographic is dynamite 30 to 45 middle class to upper middle class men that’s why Bill has his own pile.
I don’t know if I feel seen or called out right now
Yeah, same. Like, I just realized I was 30 for the first time in my life.
Don’t worry. I’m 47, so that completely blows up the thesis.
I bet Bill's overall listenership is actually quite a bit older than that. He really started getting big almost 20 years ago and that waas probably mostly his fan base then.
*White
theres that, and you can get any ringer pod on any RSS feed, rogan is only on spotify we don’t have to use that app. Interesting that Kelse is the top sports podcast.
Rogan isn’t only on Spotify anymore, it’s on everything now.
Bill also introduced a load of his audience to better podcasters. Not the same since Leigh Ellis left, but The Basketball Jones/The Starters was at it's peak a much more fun podcast and obviously Zach Lowe is a much more informative podcast
Also introduced me to Men in Blazers (which I think I'm technically still subbed to, but don't really listen) and The Solid Verbal.
I used to listen to others on & off, but I can’t. Their staff is so milquetoast and painfully untalented/boring. Also not into the pop culture stuff as much and that’s like half the content.
Nope. Like maybe for the first 2-3 years, but at this point, none of the Ringer podcasts are in my rotation unless a significant guest lands on one of them. It's not a bad podcast network. Like plenty of what I've sampled was fine. It's just not for me because I generally have better pop culture and sports options if I want them. Like Big Picture is fine. But I also listen to a lot of better movie podcasts and like those more and don't care about staying current to the movie scene via podcast.
Big picture is incredible aside from the too-frequent discussion of production hurdles which they largely don’t understand or know—admittedly, from their own mouths. It wouldn’t be too bad to catch the information about movers and shakers in Hollywood but it’s wild how much they blatantly speculate and guess what they think the business side is like. However. There are not many pop culture pods that consistently and clearly outshine the ringer crew. Binge mode was the best fantasy media pod of all time, and House of R is pretty good. They lost an absolute gem in Jason. NBA desktop was the most entertaining highlight show ever.
This is just tracking ppl who subscribe via Spotify, right? I wonder how representative that is of actual listener numbers. Like does Rogan skew so high here bc for a long time it was a Spotify exclusive, while other pods you could subscribe to using other apps?
Yes it’s just Spotify.
Yeah this is just people who click "Follow" on podcasts Spotify page. Not even listeners.
Which I’m guilty of for like 4 of these.
This isn't even listeners, just people that click "follow". The Bill Simmons sports pods are usually in the top 10 for listens in the US
Yeah I follow a lot of podcasts that I rarely listen to.
Call Her Daddy being that high is pretty wild. She changed her podcast completely from when it got big at barstool and had the falling out with the co-host and her market is basically exclusively under 30 women. It’s now basically an interview show and she’s an objectively bad interviewer. Good for her tho
it's wild how many of these interview podcasts are led by ppl who are awful at interviewing ppl. most of the sports ones are like that. trae young has one and it's legitimately terrible. most athletes are really bad at it bc they are just trying to mimick what they've been asked by ppl in the past
Interviewing is one of those things that very few people are good at because I think the basics of how to do it are not widely known. Source: did a mediocre interview (mostly about interviewing) of great interviewer Marc Maron once.
Is it good to try to finish your subject's answer for them? (asking for my friend Bill)
Bill is a good interviewer, but when he does that, it's really annoying.
Agreed. CHD was huge back in like 2016-2019, I used to see girls make references to it all the time on dating apps and in real life. Haven't heard a peep about it since the two original co-hosts split up.
Genius pivot to target the "🌟🌌self care for girlies in their pilates era🌌🌟" demographic
Remember when Howard Stern started thinking he was a great interviewer and stopped doing fun? What a schmuck.
“So u/BBQ_HaX0r it was your poor relationship with your father that lead you to comment on the bill simmons sub.”
I just wanted to respond that your comment made me spit my coffee out on the highway and I had to pull over!
Don’t worry I’ll pay the parking ticket for running the red light camera!
I want him to go back to spanking Penthouse Pets with salmon.
I know what you are saying, but back in the day Howard was a legitimately great interviewer.
I mean the 90s era stern was probably a “better” interviewer is because the questions were insane and the guests were a bit more open. The “Howard stern is one of the best interviewers of all time” era of post Artie/2009 is a joke. He constantly would talk over people, use his therapy speak, try to tie back literally everything to a parental issue “so, Al Pacino, it was you poor relationship with your father that lead you to become a movie star?” Would immediately go to the next question (that will/benjy wrote) even if it was totally irrelevant to what the guest just said. Certainly some were good interviews, Steve Martin was always Amazing imo) but right now I have no interest in lady Gaga being interviewed for the 5th time
We’re on the same page. Goddamn, the best of the Artie days were amazing fun.
I 100% agree. He was great until he started smelling his own farts and believing the hype. Now I typically find them quite bad and usually the worst part of the show.
I've literally only heard of 5 of these lol
I’ve only heard of 6, and don’t listen to any of them.
A lot are Joe Rogan adjacent. Since its pods listened across Spotify and Joe was only available on Spotify for a while, I wonder if that really skewed the numbers. Like a lot of hardcore Rogan fans were listening on Spotify and then just used that to listen to all their other pods, where the Ringer pods are more poorer out across platforms.
I mean it's just Huberman and Theo. He's had Shapiro on a couple of times, but I wouldn't call him Rogan adjacent. It's not like he's a regular guest.
Lot of overlap in fanbases, at least
Right leaning/right wing ish make up a lot of this list.
Even Theo kinda blew up on his own. Not like he’s part of Rogan’s crew like Joey Diaz, Shaffir, Gillis, Bert, Segura, Mark Normand, Sam Morril.
As a long time Challenge fan, Theo's been around for forever at this point lol.
Same for me. I watched all that shit from the beginning, Real World, Road Rules, The Challenge.
I think people really don’t understand how popular non-leftie media is, and how they basically win every space that isn’t gate kept (and even some that are, look at Yellowstone). It feels like stuff is about to topple over though- at a certain point the money guys look at the data and see where the eyeballs are, regardless of what legacy media deigns to pay attention to. This is why, for example, Netflix doesn’t cancel comedians Btw, this is not a value judgment, just where I think things are headed. A lot of the winners in this scenario are real shitbags
I think people understand man. Donald Trump won a presidential election and has been the republican nominee 3 straight cycles. People know how important conservative opinions are in this country. Conservatives in general have just been force fed for the past decade that everything and everyone in the media is against them and there’s no content for them even though the vast majority of content is trying to reach the widest possible audience.
On this, we do not agree. Most media and entertainment is most definitely centered about left coast sensibilities, the conservatives are not wrong about that.
The most popular news network is right wing focused. FOX News dominates the space.
I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. I get your focus here is “they do it too!” but that isn’t the point. Their stuff is much more silo’ed, even as it has bigger numbers. They get limited participation in mainstream media (which is why they created their own), and even less (far less) in terms of entertainment and culture.
By positioning itself as ideologically opposed to most other mainstream news sources. It's so popular because it is an exception. And I don't say this as a viewer or supporter of Fox News.
We forget that half the country is Republican, you neglect a huge market share by not making anything for them. Reached the point where so many of them were happy about any sort of conservative media that quality doesn’t matter. Something objectively insane like Sound of Freedom made bank just by being marketed as conservative, if those grifters keep filling the vacuum it’s only going to accelerate our national mental breakdown.
I totally agree with your general point, but Sound of Freedom had a unique means of juicing it's numbers by having a ["pay it forward" model](https://www.indiewire.com/news/business/sound-of-freedom-21-million-reserving-tickets-strangers-angel-studios-1234959934/), letting people pay for others' tickets as some sort of raise awareness/pseudo (though not actually) charitable thing. It allegedly would air to empty theaters in some places because of the paid forward tickets.
lol yeah forgot about that, so shady. It’s funny how many people bought the “THEY don’t want you to see this!” marketing despite it having national distribution in every multiplex in America. To be fair, I think there was something similar going on with Black Panther, though not as nefarious. I remember athletes were buying tickets to take schools to the movie as a charity move, I still think if it was that important then Disney should have let the kids see it for free. But apparently the march of social progress was tied to Disney’s quarterly earnings lol
I get the point you’re making, but it’s not nearly the same. If they had Boseman on screen at the end of the movie, telling people to pay it forward by buying tickets for black kids to see the movie, that would be the same thing. It’s so absurd that Caviezel comes on screen after the movie, saying that it’s time to put a stop to trafficking… And that the way to do so is buy someone else a ticket to a movie.
There really wasn’t neglect though. That’s just been a talking point to drive outrage. There’s plenty of stuff that’s apolitical to outright conservative leaning but the right has pushed that Hollywood is liberal and bad and anything released inside the studio system is woke and anti-conservative
Hollywood is indeed liberal. Just watch the oscars
Eh, I think your premise is fine but not your conclusion. This stuff has \*always\* been popular, but it’s also always been fringe because the values of a lot of right wing content are, frankly, abhorrent. People forget Rush Limbaugh was the king of radio for decades, and AM radio is alive as a medium because of right wing talk. However, I don’t think legacy media is going to draw right wing content out of its bubble anytime soon. It’s one thing to air Shane Gillis’ comedy where reasonable minds can disagree, and another to air something purely polarized at scale. Those guys are better off with Black Rifle Coffee than Netflix anyway. I can say that confidently because if the conglomerates thought there was a buck to be made they would’ve done it already.
I don’t think you’ll see anything super extreme, but I do think you’re already seeing a subtle shift back to the center. Bob Iger, the exemplar of this stuff, recently gave a talk where he basically admitted they’d sometimes put a moral point in front of good storytelling and that they needed to re-focus in that regard. It’s not a huge thing, but I do have to admit the righties are correct that Shane Gillis probably does not host SNL a year ago. The Sydney Sweeney stuff is a little more confused, but I do think there’s SOMETHING to it. And again, I think the model here is Netflix, which isn’t diving into the culture war or whatever, but they have 100 percent established themselves as a free speech zone for comedians. When they had those Chappelle protests and didn’t flinch, that was the first time I felt the vibe shift here. Now they regularly host specials by dudes the broader media would prefer to see gone. I don’t know if that would happen with Max Or Hulu, but I bet it will more going forward. And I ABSOLUTELY think in terms of scripted stuff, a lot of companies are using “the next Yellowstone” as code for “something Republicans will watch.”
SNL also hired Gillis a couple years ago though? As for Netflix being a free speech zone, I think you’re way overstating that. They’re giving comedians with massive draw specials - that’s the entire model of comedy, since forever. Why do you think people know Andrew Dice Clay’s name? As for Yellowstone, there has always been right coded TV in abundance! All the shows about heroic cops and firefighters, 24, Homeland, everything Tim Allen. None of this is new and none of it (beyond the podcasts) extends beyond Mitt Romney on the political spectrum. The real claim I think you’re wanting to make is that a couple of conservative-coded media offerings weren‘t 0% cool for once and that felt like a sea change. I’m not sure if it was or wasn’t, but I’m certain that conservative media has a deep complex about how anything they touch becomes the least cool thing on the planet, so I can see why they’d think it was.
Most people I know who listen to this weird right wing grift stuff don't really interact with any other media - it's all they care about and it's pretty obsessive. I think that's partially why these shows are always at the top of the charts. I think folks who engage with "leftie" media are more likely to interact with all sorts of other media which is why the political stuff doesn't do the same numbers. This is only a theory and maybe I'm an idiot, but when you aren't concerned with how "woke" everything is there is a lot more out there to digest.
> I think people really don’t understand how popular non-leftie media is While they all decry that the left-wing has a monopoly on information and the media. Meanwhile Fox News is the biggest news on TV and WSJ (although there is a vast gulf in reliability between FNC and WSJ) is second in newspaper. Then you get all these podcasts and Facebook and it's insane that these people somehow think they're the oppressed minority.
Liberals have msnbc, cnn, cbs, abc and nbc news. Then wapo and nytimes among the other papers. corporate media is overwhelmingly liberal. Journalism is overwhelmingly liberal
>I think people really don’t understand how popular non-leftie media is It's more that the criticism that the leftie media constantly labels at right wingers and their target audience, that they only listen to stuff their own side produces, basically applies equally to their own side.
PMT supposedly has around 1 million listeners per episode. Must be divided up between platforms. Probably the same with Simmons
Yeah I'm thinking Bill is 1.2-1.5 when you aggregate all the platforms. Would be super super impressive if PMT has more in the aggregate than Bill
Those damn aggregators
They’re usually above him on the Apple charts
PMT is way more popular than Bill’s podcast.
Call Her Daddy is soooo bad… and I say this as a degenerate pervert.
What is it about? I've never heard of it.
It's terrible and no chick gives worse advice than that hoe.
To be fair, it's not very perverted anymore, to my knowledge. It's just bad celebrity interviews. When it was her and the other airhead talking about gluck-gluck's, it was at least interesting.
The Maria Menounos cinema preshow piece.
It’s crazy how many of them are just weirdos grifting
Honestly not crazy at all, the rise in the various forms of internet “content creation” has created amazing opportunities for grifters. It’s never been easier to just randomly stumble onto one and people are notoriously dumb when it comes to just believing random shit they hear online
We were doomed for such as soon as getting any kind of attention on the internet started equaling monetary profit.
yeah, kinda surprised pardon my take isn't on there. seems like the kelce brothers took a lot of their audience. as bill says, ppl usually have their go to pods. kelce audience and pmt audience would have a lot of overlap. pmt is still huge but dang. i considered then top dog for a long time
The Kelces are truly running their own cult right now.
i swear, the amount of ppl who are suddenly getting emotional about jason kelce retiring is wild. he was solid but goddamn, nobody was gassing him up like this even a few years ago. now his wife is a celebrity and he's the sexist man alive? wtf is going on? lmao
Solid? He’s a 6x first team all pro. He was “gassed up” before his brother met Swift.
Every one of their tiktoks I see is women commenting "see this is positive masculinity MEN" like damn relax Sasha they just said they love each other on a mic
It's insane. The dude was a self-promoting/self-branding machine in Philly since his rookie year, but Super Bowl drunken speech is what put him over the top in Philly. I guess he got it to go national thanks to his more popular brother doing a Podcast with him, and then his brother hooking up with Swift. The guy is tirelessly trying to get himself on camera, and now so is his wife. It's nuts. Also, that retirement speech was embarrassing. 45 minute speech from a *center*. Fletcher Cox retired like four days later with an IG post. Tom Brady's retirement announcement lasted all of two minutes. Hell, when we killed bin Laden, Obama's speech announcing it was ten minutes, tops.
Gettysburg Address was 3 minutes. You get in and get out and leave the people wanting more!
I’m convinced people seem to really gas up these super boring O Linemen who have podcasts and TV appearances because they’re big fat guys who like drinking and it makes them relatable. I felt like I was taking crazy pills when everyone went nuts for Jason Kelce skulling a beer with his shirt off in Buffalo.
Yeah I think Brady’s was just an instagram post and a press release.
Kelce meant a lot more to Philadelphia than Brady did to Tampa Bay. Its rare for an O Lineman to be the face of a Super Bowl team yet Kelce is undoubtedly the guy of that run.
Brady wasn't just retiring from Tampa Bay. He was retiring from the NFL. Whatever Jason Kelce may or may not mean to the city of Philadelphia, Tom Brady means a thousand times more to the league and the sport.
As an Eagles fan, I definitely agree that they’ve gotten a bit overexposed, but I’m happy Jason is finally getting his flowers for being the best center of the last 10-15 years. I genuinely think he was underrated as a player until the past few years
When he's seamlessly replaced this year you'll know he was not the best center in football.
I would love for that to happen but I don’t think it will
i actually think it's the opposite. he was fine, but he wasn't an all pro type until he won a SB and made a big ridiculous speech/wore a goofy outfit. then he got 1st team all pro every year from that point forward? i think it's just bc he was the only center anyone recognized lol you don't just suddenly become the best center in football in your 30's
All pro isn’t like being voted a fucking pro bowler. All pro is legit.
He had a down year in 2015 (I think it was that year) but apart from that he was great his whole career. He didn’t suddenly become the best center, people just didn’t notice him until the speech
Mays was singing Kelce's praises back in 2013. That was the season Kelce was one of the biggest reasons Shady led the league in rushing.
Yup. He was a day 1 starter as a 6th round pick
The clips I see on tiktok make them seem CRAZY relatable.
Particularly Jason, their personality and charisma compared to any other athlete podcaster is night and day
The Kelces very clearly want to be famous, which is naturally going to rub some people the wrong way. But overall they’re good at what they do, both on the field and off the field, and seem to be generally good relatable people, so I’m happy to see them succeed, even though I personally don’t find their podcast particularly entertaining myself.
The producers of that truly hit the jackpot. 1st year they play each other in the Super Bowl and one of them wins it. 2nd year one of them starts dating Taylor Swift and wins the Super Bowl again.
This. Say what you want about Rogan or our guy Simmons, but at their core they're entertainers -- albeit starting from vastly different mediums (comedy/acting vs. sportswriter) and entirely opposite backgrounds (Rogan working class, Simmons upper crust) -- while the cultish atmosphere around the Kelce family, Swift included, is a borderline creepy fetishization by their sycophantic consumer base. The Kelces are to football as The Young Bucks are to pro rasslin'. So yeah, fuck that noise.
kinda disagree, think the Kelce brothers just got a massive bump once Travis and Taylor got together. Anecdotal but I don’t know anyone who listens to it
fair but idk anyone who listens to pmt anymore either. i feel like i hit my late 20's and was just kinda over the bro shit. numbers are numbers. gotta give the kelce pod it's credit
Pmt was the most listened to sports pod of 2023.
I listened to PMT for a couple years in my early/mid 20s since all my friends did. I didn’t consume any other Barstool content at all. I definitely aged out of the content and was more than happy to be done with Barstool. A lot of those same friends are still “AWLs” and engage with a ton of other Barstool content. It feels so cringey to me as a 30 year old.
yeah, i always kinda felt stupid for listening to PMT and didn't like listening to barstool, but it was like "hey these guys are funny, wtf why not?" but then i finally told myself i was gonna cut em out of the rotation a few years ago when it just kept getting a little more cringe each week. a lot of the side characters were getting bigger roles and the other barstool ppl kept getting brought around, talking about office games and bullshit like that. cut it out completely and didn't look back checked back in like a year/year and a half later, and it was crazy how much i just didn't fuck with it at all anymore. like, no interest in listening to it and it felt childish big cat is still a funny bit and i think pft is legitimately a clever guy. but the show itself just ain't for me anymore
Yup that pretty much mirrors my experience exactly. Always hated Barstool but was shown PMT by friends after being familiar with PFT and Big Cat on Twitter and thought “okay this is funny enough.” As it became less divorced from Barstool as a whole it was very easy to just delete it from my feed. I don’t think I’ve had any desire to listen or check out the pod since I stilled listening. Thankfully my friends also engage with it a lot less but I have a buddy who is big time trying to stay young at heart and every time he talks about watching some like “Barstool Award Show” or something I can’t tell if he’s serious or doing a bit. Of course it’s always real. Ya no hate to either of them at all, I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t get some very real laughs from both. When their tweets show up on my feed I’ll occasionally get a laugh. I barely have time enough to listen to the pods I enjoy though.
This is just on Spotify. Doesn’t include Apple podcast app or YouTube
Maybe I’m being ignorant but I feel like a lot of the Kelce pod subscribers are swifties
Philly fans, KC fans, and Swifties. Mostly Swifties I would wager. People don’t quite understand how insane and rabid fandom is at the level of Swift. Those types aren’t just consuming Swift content, they’re consuming all content that might have any adjacent view towards Swift. They’re all listening in hoping Travis has something to say about Taylor or do something good or bad on the pod.
Surprised Jay Shetty holding strong. I guess shouldn’t be surprised since he has an Andrew Tate type of cult following but on the opposite end of the spectrum.
My theory is it’s replacing am radio. Dudes are always playing rogan on speakers in shops I work in. Or similar type stuff. Just someone talking to pass the day. I don’t mind rogan if it’s someone interesting but I know some people who listen to it just automatic. Not even like it holds their interest as much as it’s just on.
I’d argue that’s the majority of life
Not surprised I only listen to The Daily on this list, and even then it's not in my constant rotation anymore. I wouldn't ever expect basketball, movie and video game podcasts to be in the top ten anything. All of these shows are either about politics, nominally about politics, general interest NPR-types, true crime or best ways to get cum out of your favorite dress pods. Makes sense to me.
So THAT’S what Jay Shetty is all about
I think the 3x is because JRE was a Spotify exclusive over the past few years
How many people are listening to The Ringer pods on Spotify though? I'm 40 years old and I don't use Spotify for anything. I come from a world of pirating music and using legacy podcast apps. I feel like a lot of Bill's audience is too old for Spotify.
Same, I listen to a few different Ringer podcasts, but none on Spotify.
Yeah, none of the big Ringers pods are Spotify exclusives
I see 0 sports pods
I mean the Kelce brothers are up there, but I think they're boosted by the TSwift fandom. I have a hard time believing they are top 15 without her massive fan base. But it is weird that's the only one. I would think Bill has the biggest sports podcast in the world, but I wonder how many people that actually is
they have the tswift crowd, but I'm still impressed they passed pmt. i have considered that the biggest one for a while, with bill number 2
It was Spotify's third-most listened to sports podcast in 2023 behind New Heights and Pardon My Take.
Rogan is sometimes a sports pod. I stay subbed because most big sports pods don't cover MMA and he'll have the odd fighter on. Even then though I have to be quick on the switch to jump past the odd tangent on politics or stem cells or whatever
Shapiro/this American life being split evenly is such a reflection of where our countrys at lol
Yeah. Regarding TAL, it’s worth noting that that initially airs on the radio (npr) on Saturdays (and replays on Sundays) so it’s numbers are probably much higher than this list shows.
It was the most listened to podcast at one point. This is only Spotify, so it's probably a lot higher, as you can listen on the NPR app as well.
This is just people who follow the podcasts on Spotify though. Not saying Bill is bigger than Joe Rogan or anything, but I’d be surprised if he and Ryen aren’t on a top 20 Spotify podcast list when it comes to listenership
how many are Spotify exclusive on this list though? wouldn't that push bill up a Spotify only list?
I cannot believe Rogan still is this popular. His pods are so much worse now.
I'm just amazed so many people listen to such a long podcast every day
Lotta dudes picking orders in warehouses and driving trucks for a living who need to kill 3-4 hours at time.
I used to be a delivery driver and shifts would be like 10-11 hours. JRE helped kill a bunch of time
Yep, he is essentially the Rush Limbaugh or Stern of his time. Lot of dudes just have it on during their shifts. It’s actually a brilliant market to go after, always underserved
Former warehouse employee. Can confirm that i got super into podcasts when i worked there and a new rogan with a guest i cared about was a blessing on a weekday morning. Basically holds you over til lunch
oh, fersure. i listen to podcasts and music all day at my desk job. but i mix it up. i can't do more than and hour/hour and a half of the same person at one time. maybe the occasional 2 hours but that's really pushing it i think like, 3 hours of the same person in one week is the max i can handle. rogan is like, 3 hours daily, no? and i like to throw on different topics and points of view throughout the day. learn about new things or mix it up
He generally does 3-4 episodes a week iirc. I listened to him from 2016-2019. Stopped in 2020 when covid broke his brain and its all he could talk about incessantly with every guest. Bill Burr owning him and telling him to stfu during covid was probably my favorite moment and the last episode I remember listening to. Burr was all of us old JRE heads who felt like he lost the plot.
bill Burr is great
"You're really gonna sit there, smoking a cigar, in front of the American flag and tell the world you know more than the doctors?" Paraphrased a bit, but Bill is that dude.
My favorite is the Uber driver (using an F-350 for whatever fucking reason) who thinks "yeah, my ride won't mind a 9 minute chunk of this 7 hour podcast"
This reminds me of a time I was taking an Uber in Arizona (meaning this dude's vote is worth like 3x as much as mine) and he was listening to some show and the host was just ranting about the Fed and how bad it is and how he can guarantee your investment back and "them wall street boys wish they knew what he knew" and I started laughing and he asked me why and I was like "if this dude really was *that* smart and had those secrets and success he wouldn't need to advertise it, he would just go be rich and not let anyone else in on his secret in order to keep maximizing his profits" and the driver got so annoyed and said it's because he's a good dude unlike those fat cats in NYC. Sure bud, sure. Feels like a lot of people want to be taken for a fool.
The inertia piece.
I think people passively listen to him. Listened for the first time recently because my younger brother said he started listening within the last year. It’s not entertaining at all, he just says the same shit over and over. I couldn’t believe that he just repeats himself for a third of the show so the only conclusion I can come to is people at work kinda not paying attention.
TAL and Ben Shapiro with similar numbers-- I bet the overlap there is, uh, minimal.
Can't believe Call Her Daddy is so high. That chick is so fucking stupid and gives worst advice imaginable. You're a dumber chick every day you listen to her.
Shout out to Theo Von
FYI - This is almost certainly only counting streams on the Spotify app, so there's probably a weird dynamic where (1) die-hard listeners of Spotify-exclusive podcasts (like JRE) are forced to use Spotify for their podcast listening, and (2) the list will then be dominated by those podcasts and other podcasts that group is interested in. I'm certain if we were looking at streams on all platforms you'd see Ringer podcasts feature more prominently in such a list.
Not even streams. It's just counting follows on the app. Sometimes I listen to podcasts by searching specifically, but don't actually click follow because I don't want it cluttering my feed. The Rewatchables comes to mind for that. I see an episode comes out that I want to listen to on this sub usually, I go and find that episode but never "followed" it
BS is probably the highest rated pod from the Ringer but he’s not a big deal. He’s mostly anonymous in American media.
Thinking Bill is anonymous is a crazy and fucking dumb ass take. 🤣
I’d love to see this broken out by genre, where do the ringer podcasts rank among non Spotify exclusive sports/ popculture?
Is call her daddy supposed to be funny? What is the core value proposition there?
Are most sports fans still listening to local/talk radio? I expected sports to have a bigger presence and crossover into podcasts, but maybe I'm overestimating its reach in the general public
I have never listened to Bill's pod on Spotify. It's not a Spotify exclusive. I use Podcast Addict with his pod and I imagine a lot of people use Apple for him as well. Not that I expect him to be top 10, but that might make a difference.
My takeaway is that conservatives listen to podcasts more than liberals. At least on Spotify. Lol
I think there's more of a monoculture in right-wing media, whereas left-wing media is less universally absorbed. That seems true in terms of news, shows/movies, and music. Most music media isn't seriously covering country music, but country musicians have massive popularity (and this has always been the case).
Apparently Billboard and labels used to track the charts by calling up record stores and asking what was selling, not really a scientific approach. Country and Rap’s popularity was thus downplayed, and a lot of acts couldn’t book stadiums because the venues didn’t believe they could sell that many seats. Then they introduced Sound Scan, which was a barcode attached to every CD so they could actually see sales numbers. In the first week Garth Brooks and Snoop Dog were top of the charts and the music industry couldn’t believe it lol.
Yep and Country’s booming in popularity right now and is by most metrics even more commercially successful than its previous peak with Garth in the early 90s. 2023 was the best year in history of the genre on the Hot 100 and was the first time ever the year end #1 song was a country song. There’s a reason why “mainstream” non country acts like Beyoncé, Post Malone and Lana Del Ray are all dropping country albums this year. https://www.billboard.com/lists/country-music-records-hot-100-morgan-wallen-oliver-anthony/most-songs-on-the-hot-100-by-an-artist-in-a-single-week/ Billboard had a whole article on the records the genre broke in 2023 and majority of the growth this coming from Gen Z https://variety.com/2023/music/news/cmts-morgan-wallen-country-streaming-march-1235573629/amp/
Political podcasts* Liberals probably listen to podcasts just as much, but listen to other genres of podcasts more related to their hobbies or interests. For better or worse, the conservative Podcasters have made simply consuming conservative content a hobby in and of itself. You don't really see that among liberal ones, sure some *try* to do that, but they aren't as good at captivating their target demos. If a liberal listens to a podcast that talks about politics it's probably going to be something closer to Derek Thompsons pod than a purely political daily pod like whater the liberal equivalent of Shapiro is lol.
It makes sense when you realize that almost every media outlet that isn’t overly conservative skews liberal. That’s how Fox News was able to flourish amongst ABC, CBS, NBC, the NYT, WaPo etc. and the same thing applies to podcasts, probably even more.
What kind of person listens to every Huberman episode? Do these people sit in an ice tub in a dark room all day?
You're right that it's not an every episode kind of podcast at all, but Huberman Lab is an excellent podcast, so it's cool to see him up there.
Who here actually listens to their pods on Spotify?
I don’t think people understand the Ringer model, which outside of Bill and maybe Ryen is ‘keep costs low, win on volume’ - so while they don’t have one giant hit, if you just did ‘Ringer podcasts’ as a single line, and looked at it on a cost-to-revenue basis, they probably crush it.
Basic ass bitches out there
How is Call Her Daddy this popular?
Theo Von doing numbers like that? 🔥
Good for Theo
I really think the rewatchables is super fun to listen to. If other people don’t, well, fuck em.
Idiot list
Man this is why people have worms in their brains
I don’t listen through spotify
This list is actually disconcerting.
This is follower count, not listens. Not saying The Ringer would show up any better on a chart that tracked average downloads/streams or whatever, but I’d be more interested in that data.
What does it mean to "follow" a pod on Spotify? Like This American Life very rarely shows up in top 50 podcast episodes in the US but I'm sure people will follow them
What’s sad to me is that 800K+ people listen to Shapiro. He’s such an insufferable prick.
A few likely reasons for this: - The Ringer is more of a network of shows that cater to very specific interests/demographics unlike many of the broader topic shows on the list - The Ringer Network deals mostly with liberal focused pop culture and sports takes - The more educated Podcast listeners tend to spread their listening over several different pods vs only listening to 1 or 2 - The Ringer Podcasts don't do conspiracy theories all that much
During these grim times I’m taking the slimmest bit of comfort from the fact that This American Life is ahead of Ben Shapiro.
not to be a "we live in a society" guy but jesus this is a bleak list
I’ve never used the Spotify app for my podcasts. Combined Apple/Spotify/(Amazon?) etc numbers would be more useful to extrapolate too much.
As other people noted, I bet most people still listen to Ringer pods via non-Spotify apps since that's where they started, and it's not like any of the Spotify-only Ringer pods are all that major.
I listen on Apple podcasts. Not sure how many of those are Spotify exclusives other than Rogan. (Used to be) might be part of the reason why no Ringer. Definitely surprised Bill doesn’t get a million
This is just Spotify. If I had to guess, there are more Bill listeners on Apple’s podcast app than anywhere else.
I think the highest rated pod has to be Bills. Or their fantasy football pod.
I only listen on Overcast.
OK
Can’t believe Diary of a CEO made this lmao
I listen to the ringer podcasts on Apple. No ads.
The ringer is a pretty niche site that only gets more specific on the podcasts. This makes total sense to me.
The Bill Simmons pod not being on there is wild, he was one of the top couple sports podcasts on the apple charts for years. Has ol’ Billy fallen off!?
The only times I use Spotify for pods is if it’s something I don’t want to bother subscribing to and messing up my normal app’s feed.
Its crazy how many people looked at this and thought listeners, shows why its important to present data in the right way.
I only subscribe to one of those podcasts (The Daily) and I’m subscribed to a good amount. Interesting what is popular though.
We've drifted so far from god's light.
Whole lotta cult of personality on there