What Did Podtrac Publish on November 9?
Its monthly ranking of US podcast publishers for October 2026, plus a global ranking that also counts video. Podtrac, a podcast measurement company, ranks publishers that use its measurement for the whole month. Its release named 14 US publishers that grew in October, led by DailyWire at 20% and PRX at 19% in audience (Podtrac release, via Podnews). The ranking page defines “US Unique Monthly Audience” as the total of unique US audience members who download or play a publisher’s content across all its shows, and “Active Shows” as the count of shows that contribute to the totals (Podtrac).
October was the last full month before the November 3 midterm elections, and several of the fastest growers publish news and politics: DailyWire, CNN (10%), Fox Audio Network (9%) and Blaze Media (9%). Podtrac’s release gives no reason for any publisher’s growth, so we do not assign one.
Who Reaches the Most Listeners per Show?
DailyWire+, by a wide margin. The ranking gives three numbers for each publisher: audience, downloads and streams, and active shows. Dividing them gives two measures Podtrac does not print, which matter when a company is deciding where to place a guest.
US unique monthly audience divided by active shows (our arithmetic); multi-show publishers only, excluding the two sales networks
Source: Podtrac, Top US Podcast Publishers and Networks, October 2026; Media Morpheus Research arithmetic. Read November 11, 2026.
An average, not any one show’s audience: one large show can carry a publisher’s total, and a listener to two shows counts once in the publisher total. Eight of the 15 multi-show publishers that are not sales networks.
The spread is wide: a publisher with a few flagship shows reaches far more people per show than a large catalog, even when the totals are similar.
| Publisher | US audience (millions) | Downloads and streams (millions) | Shows | Downloads per listener | Listeners per show | Audience change | Implied Sept. audience |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| iHeart Audience Network* | 64.30m | 294.66m | 30,061 | 4.58 | 2,139 | +12% | 57.4m |
| iHeartPodcasts | 35.28m | 172.96m | 982 | 4.90 | 35,925 | +10% | 32.1m |
| NPR Sales Network* | 19.66m | 101.75m | 73 | 5.17 | 269,342 | +9% | 18.0m |
| Vox Media | 7.58m | 26.38m | 70 | 3.48 | 108,300 | +13% | 6.7m |
| The Walt Disney Company | 7.39m | 25.26m | 163 | 3.42 | 45,313 | +7% | 6.9m |
| Barstool Sports | 6.95m | 17.67m | 126 | 2.54 | 55,159 | n/a | n/a |
| DailyWire+ | 6.18m | 22.62m | 14 | 3.66 | 441,571 | +20% | 5.2m |
| Fox Audio Network | 6.01m | 22.85m | 207 | 3.80 | 29,019 | +9% | 5.5m |
| PodcastOne | 6.00m | 14.64m | 190 | 2.44 | 31,553 | n/a | n/a |
| Paramount | 4.25m | 12.87m | 135 | 3.03 | 31,444 | n/a | n/a |
| Versant | 3.65m | 14.89m | 97 | 4.08 | 37,660 | +9% | 3.4m |
| WNYC Studios | 3.03m | 9.21m | 35 | 3.04 | 86,571 | +9% | 2.8m |
| PRX | 2.89m | 6.96m | 131 | 2.41 | 22,038 | +19% | 2.4m |
| The Volume | 2.65m | 9.82m | 26 | 3.71 | 101,769 | +14% | 2.3m |
| This American Life | 2.21m | 4.59m | 1 | 2.07 | 2.21m | n/a | n/a |
| Blaze Media | 2.08m | 8.90m | 16 | 4.27 | 130,250 | +9% | 1.9m |
| ReVolver Podcasts | 1.53m | 3.37m | 175 | 2.20 | 8,766 | +14% | 1.3m |
| CNN | 1.44m | 5.12m | 71 | 3.55 | 20,310 | +10% | 1.3m |
* Sales network: Podtrac says these sell advertising across shows they may not own, so their per-show figures are not comparable with publishers’. Audience, downloads, shows and audience change are Podtrac’s; the other columns are ours. Implied September audience divides October audience by one plus the published growth rate, so it inherits Podtrac’s rounding to whole percentages.
Do Bigger Audiences Mean More Listening per Person?
Not consistently. NPR Sales Network logs 5.17 downloads or streams per listener a month and iHeartPodcasts 4.90; PRX, PodcastOne and This American Life sit between 2.07 and 2.44. A high ratio usually means listeners take several episodes, often of a daily show. The October changes moved in different directions too. At Fox Audio Network audience grew 9% while downloads and plays grew 18%, so the people already listening took more episodes. At iHeart Audience Network the audience grew 12% but downloads only 3%, a wider but thinner month. DailyWire added listeners (20%) faster than downloads (11%).
How Should a Guest or Sponsor Read a Network Total?
As a ceiling for the whole catalog, not as the audience of the show you will be on. A network’s total counts a listener once even if they hear several shows, and a guest appears on one. Our recommendation, not a Podtrac rule: ask a producer for the show’s own monthly audience and downloads by episode, and divide the network total by its active shows only as a rough check on how concentrated it is. Our explainer on what a podcast network is covers how sales networks differ from owners, and our report on whether Podtrac counts YouTube views like YouTube explains why the global ranking, which adds video, is not comparable with this one. Podtrac’s own measurement is on the IAB Tech Lab registry, last certified July 10, 2026, which you can check with our guide to reading an IAB certificate.
Limits of These Numbers
The ranking only includes publishers measured by Podtrac for the full month, so large companies that use other measurement do not appear. Audience and downloads are US-only and month-specific. The listeners-per-show figure is an average that a single hit show can dominate. The November ranking, due in early December, will show whether the October gains held after Election Day.
Sources and Methodology
This report is built from Podtrac’s October 2026 US publisher ranking page and its November 9, 2026 release, both read on November 11, 2026. Ratios, per-show averages and implied September audiences are our arithmetic. Advice for guests and sponsors is our recommendation, not Podtrac’s.
- official Podtrac, Top US Podcast Publishers and Networks, October 2026. Audience, downloads and streams, active shows, definitions. Read November 11, 2026.
- vendor Podtrac, Podtrac Publishes the Top US and Global Multi-Channel Podcast Publishers & Networks for October 2026 (press release via Podnews, November 9, 2026). Month-over-month growth rates. Read November 11, 2026.
- standards IAB Tech Lab, Compliant Companies: Podcast Compliance. Podtrac’s certification date. Read November 11, 2026.