Who Leads, by Our Count?
Three channels sit between 21 and 23 million, and everyone else is under 9 million. We opened the public YouTube page of 20 widely known podcast channels on November 13, 2026 and recorded the subscriber count each one showed. The list is ours, chosen from shows that publish full episodes on YouTube. It is not a complete census, and YouTube publishes no official ranking by subscribers.
| Rank | Show | Channel | Subscribers shown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Figuring Out with Raj Shamani | @rajshamani | 22.2M |
| 2 | The Diary of a CEO | @TheDiaryOfACEO | 21.9M |
| 3 | The Joe Rogan Experience | @joerogan | 21.2M |
| 4 | The Ranveer Show (BeerBiceps) | @BeerBiceps | 8.22M |
| 5 | Huberman Lab | @hubermanlab | 8.01M |
| 6 | PBD Podcast | @PBDPodcast | 7.16M |
| 7 | The Ben Shapiro Show | @BenShapiro | 6.96M |
| 8 | Shawn Ryan Show | @ShawnRyanShow | 6.68M |
| 9 | The Mel Robbins Podcast | @MelRobbins | 6.44M |
| 10 | On Purpose with Jay Shetty | @JayShetty | 6.23M |
| 11 | The Tucker Carlson Show | @TuckerCarlson | 5.79M |
| 12 | Lex Fridman Podcast | @lexfridman | 5.07M |
| 13 | Impaulsive | @impaulsive | 4.82M |
| 14 | This Past Weekend with Theo Von | @TheoVon | 4.81M |
| 15 | Modern Wisdom (Chris Williamson) | @ChrisWillx | 4.50M |
| 16 | The Megyn Kelly Show | @MegynKelly | 4.19M |
| 17 | New Heights | @newheightshow | 3.21M |
| 18 | Kill Tony | @KillTony | 2.82M |
| 19 | H3 Podcast | @h3podcast | 2.49M |
| 20 | Club Shay Shay | @ClubShayShay | 2.17M |
Millions of subscribers, as shown on each public channel page, November 13, 2026
Source: YouTube channel pages for each show, read November 13, 2026, about 8:40 a.m. Eastern.
YouTube shortens public counts to three significant figures. A channel’s count includes subscribers to everything it posts, including Shorts and clips, not only full episodes.
The chart shows a three-way race at the top and a gap of more than 13 million to the fourth channel.
How Close Is the Race at the Top?
Closer than the headline numbers suggest. YouTube says the count “is shortened depending on the number of subscribers your channel has”; its own examples show 12,345 displayed as 12.3K (YouTube Help). At this size each displayed figure covers a band of 100,000 subscribers. Whether YouTube rounds or truncates within that band, which its page does not say, by our arithmetic Shamani’s true lead over The Diary of a CEO is between 200,000 and 400,000. At The Diary of a CEO’s recent pace, set out below, that gap would close in roughly 4 to 8 days if Shamani added nobody, which he will not.
Who Has Claimed the Top Spot, and When?
Two shows claimed it 11 days apart. A dated timeline from the two releases, with our day counts:
- December 29, 2025: The Diary of a CEO at about 14.2 million subscribers, per FlightStory (Podnews press release).
- November 1, 2026, 13:40 GMT: The Diary of a CEO 21.3 million, Rogan 21.2 million, per FlightStory. That is a gain of about 7.1 million in 307 days, or roughly 23,000 a day by our division.
- November 2, 2026: Podnews reports that The Diary of a CEO “has become the most-subscribed podcast on YouTube, overtaking Joe Rogan” (Podnews).
- November 13, 2026: Shamani’s release says Figuring Out is first to 22 million and has added 8 million subscribers in 2026 (Podnews press release). Our read the same morning: 22.2 million, 21.9 million and 21.2 million.
The two claims do not quite measure the same thing. FlightStory’s release title refers to YouTube’s podcast charts. Shamani’s refers to podcasts on YouTube generally. Eight million new subscribers over the 316 days from January 1 to November 13 averages about 25,000 a day, by our arithmetic. Projected back at that rate, Shamani’s channel would have been near 21.9 million on November 1, already above The Diary of a CEO. We could not find his count for that date, so treat this as an estimate.
Where Is the Growth Coming From?
Outside the English-speaking audience, by both shows’ own figures. FlightStory says 260,775,120 of The Diary of a CEO’s 1,118,418,002 YouTube views from January 1 to October 31, 2026, or 23.3%, were on non-English audio tracks, and that episodes are translated into more than 20 languages (Podnews press release). Shamani’s release says “international subscribers account for 22%” of his YouTube base, without defining international (Podnews press release). Rogan’s count is the only one of the three that did not move between the two releases at the precision YouTube shows.
Both figures are the companies’ own, drawn from their YouTube Studio data, and we could not check them independently.
What Does a Subscriber Count Measure?
People who chose to follow a channel, not people who watched an episode. Spam and closed accounts are removed, YouTube says, but a subscriber may never watch again (YouTube Help). YouTube also publishes podcast charts, the ranking FlightStory’s release referred to, and we did not use them for counts (YouTube Charts). For download-based audience figures, Podtrac’s ranking is the usual source, covered in our October 2026 Podtrac report, and our report on how podcasts are consumed sets out the split between video and audio listening.
What This Means for Anyone Booking a Guest Spot
A large subscriber count says a show can reach people; it does not say who. The three largest channels now draw a big share of viewers from outside the United States, by their own account. A US company booking one of them for a domestic audience should ask the producer for country and view data, not subscribers. Our recommendation, not a platform rule: ask for average views per full episode over the last 90 days and the top five viewer countries. If your own show is starting on YouTube, our guide to creating a YouTube channel for a podcast covers the setup.
Methodology and Limitations
Four limits apply. First, our list of 20 is a selection, and a channel we did not check could be larger. Second, counts are YouTube’s rounded public figures at one moment. Third, some channels, such as Ben Shapiro’s and Tucker Carlson’s, carry more than one show or non-podcast video, so their totals are not for one podcast alone. Fourth, growth and international figures come from the shows’ own releases. The next thing to watch is whether The Diary of a CEO passes 22 million, which, at its recent pace, could come within days.
Sources and Methodology
This report is built from 20 YouTube channel pages read on November 13, 2026, two press releases published by Podnews on November 2 and November 13, Podnews’s November 2 news item, YouTube Help on subscriber counts and YouTube’s podcast chart page. The 20-channel table, rounding bounds, daily growth rates and the back-projection are our own work. Advice on bookings is our recommendation, not a platform rule. We did not contact the shows.
- live read YouTube channel pages, including @rajshamani, @TheDiaryOfACEO and @joerogan. Subscriber counts for all 20 channels in the table. Read November 13, 2026.
- vendor Podnews, Figuring Out with Raj Shamani press release (November 13, 2026). 22 million claim, 8 million added in 2026, 22% international. Read November 13, 2026.
- vendor Podnews, The Diary Of A CEO becomes the most-subscribed podcast on YouTube’s podcast charts (FlightStory release, November 2, 2026). Counts on November 1 and December 29, 2025, views by audio language. Read November 13, 2026.
- trade press Podnews, Bartlett vs Rogan (November 2, 2026). Read November 13, 2026.
- platform documentation YouTube Help, Check your YouTube subscriber count. Shortened counts, spam and closed accounts. Read November 13, 2026.
- platform documentation YouTube Charts, Top podcast shows, United States. The chart’s existence; not used for counts. Read November 13, 2026.