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Apple Podcasts released a set of rankings for the most popular shows in each country – showing the “top shows” (based on listenership), “top new shows” that first published in 2025, “most followed shows”, “most shared shows”, and “top channels”. You can see your country’s chart here.
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Based on listenership data, rankings for Apple Podcasts’ “top shows” (and top new shows) appear in seventy different countries: we’ve all those country lists in full.
- In the US, Joe Rogan is #1, while Good Hang is the top new show. (Rogan also appears in the top tens for Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa).
- In the UK, The Rest is Politics is #1, one of four Goalhanger shows in the top ten. There are two more in the new show ranker, including The Rest is Classified at #1. Goalhanger shows appear 19 times in the full lists.
- The English-language show that appears the most is The Ringer’s Good Hang, with ten appearances – launched this year, it’s eligible for both charts.
- By comparing Triton Digital ranker data, we think Apple’s “top shows” are measured by total plays, rather than by listeners or time-spent.
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In addition, Apple’s curated lists of Best Shows of 2025 appear in 29 different countries. Here’s your country’s, if you have one.
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Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare suffered a three-hour outage. Cloudflare delivers 15% of all podcast episodes, including those hosted by Buzzsprout, Transistor and Ausha; its failure also took out all shows monitored by analytics service OP3 for around 90 minutes, made much of Spotify and Apple Podcasts unusable, and even led to flight delays.
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The Hollywood Reporter released the first-ever Podcasters Roundtable, featuring some Golden Globes-eligible podcasters. It’s unclear whether these podcasters paid to take part in this feature; however, one of them, Ben Shapiro, has paid significant money to buy multiple billboards on Times Square to promote his show to judges as “best podcast”, as well as a full-page inside-cover ad in Variety. The Golden Globes, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter are all owned by Penske Media.
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Libsyn is now v2.2 certified under the IAB’s Podcast Measurement Guidelines. The compliance was completed in time for Halloween, but has just been announced by the IAB.
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The Australian Podcast Ranker released October 2025’s data. There’s no change in the top 9 shows. ABC News Top Stories and Sky News Australia Update, both heavily used on smart speakers, are in the top ten (and none appear on Apple’s list). The Daily is the biggest international show at #13; it’s represented in the country by ARN’s iHeart.
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Is it that time already? The Podglomerate publishes a set of predictions for 2026 from 22 industry experts.
Moves and hires
Enter The Webbys. Share Your Work with the Internet’s Best.
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Since 1996, The Webby Awards has been recognized as the preeminent international honor for Internet excellence. Last year’s Webby Awards received nearly 13,000 entries from around the world.
This year, The Webby Awards has expanded offerings in Podcasts, including Best New Podcast, Best Video Podcast, Best Video Podcast Host, as well as Interview or Talk Show – Entertainment & Culture and Interview or Talk Show – News, Business & Society. Don’t forget, Podcast Company of the Year, a Special Achievement award recognizing the podcast company with the most accolades across the 30th Annual Webby Awards competition.
Judges for Podcasts this year include: Bill Simmons, Founder & CEO, The Ringer, Stephanie Wittels Wachs, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Lemonada Media, Ben Cave, Global Head of Podcasts, Apple, Jenna Weiss-Berman, Head of Audio & Podcasts, Paper Kite Productions, Bob Carrigan, CEO, Audible and Shreeya Sinha, Executive Editor, Audio, The New York Times.
Learn more, and enter the 30th Annual Webby Awards by the Final Entry Deadline on December 19th, 2025.
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