NPR, iHeart Maintain Podcast Leadership in July 2025

RADIO ONLINE | Wednesday, August 6, 2025 | 9:53am CT

Podtrac

Podtrac has released its July 2025 podcast rankings, revealing steady performance among the industry's top shows and publishers. NPR's NPR News Now retained the No. 1 spot among U.S. podcasts by unique monthly audience, followed closely by The Daily from The New York Times and Up First, also from NPR.

Among the top 15 podcasts, most positions remained stable, with a few notable shifts. Fox News Hourly Update rose one position to No. 4, while Dateline NBC dropped to No. 5. iHeartPodcasts' Stuff You Should Know climbed two spots to No. 8, and The Ezra Klein Show also advanced two positions to No. 15. NPR's Planet Money made a significant leap, rising 11 spots to re-enter the chart at No. 20.

In the publisher rankings, iHeartMedia maintained its dominant position, leading with over 63.6 million unique U.S. monthly listeners across 21,773 active shows. iHeartPodcasts followed at No. 2 with nearly 30 million listeners and 820 active shows. NPR ranked third with 26.1 million listeners and 90 active shows.

Among other highlights:

• Vox Media, Paramount, and Barstool Sports all remained in the top 12.

• Blaze Media and CNN continued to hold spots in the lower tier of the top 20.

• This American Life ranked No. 16 overall, despite producing only one active show.

• ReVolver Podcasts rounded out the top 18 with 1.7 million listeners.

Podtrac noted that five participating publishers saw increases in U.S. Unique Monthly Audience (UMA) in July over June, and six saw increases in U.S. downloads. One global network also posted gains in global downloads, streams, and views.