Podtrac Releases February Podcast Industry Rankings

RADIO ONLINE | Friday, March 6, 2026 | 3:43pm CT

Podtrac

Podtrac has released its Top U.S. and Global Publishers & Networks rankings along with the Top U.S. Podcast chart for February 2026, highlighting audience trends and performance among major podcast producers.

According to Podtrac, two U.S. ranking participants posted increases in Unique Monthly Audience (UMA) in February compared with January. In addition, two U.S. participants recorded gains in U.S. downloads month-to-month.

Globally, four ranking participants saw increases in UMA during February compared with January, while one global participant posted an increase in U.S. downloads.

Among podcast publishers and networks in the United States, iHeart Audience Network again led the ranking with 60.7 million U.S. unique monthly listeners, followed by iHeartPodcasts with 29.2 million and Acast with 24.1 million. NPR Sales Network ranked fourth with 19.8 million, and Libsyn rounded out the top five with 17.9 million.

The publisher rankings also track U.S. streams and downloads. iHeart Audience Network led that metric with 320.7 million, followed by iHeartPodcasts with 157 million and Acast with 88.2 million.

In the Top U.S. Podcasts ranking based on unique monthly audience, "NPR News Now" remained the No. 1 podcast for February. "The Daily" from The New York Times ranked second, followed by "Up First from NPR." Other shows in the top five included "Dateline NBC" and "Fox News Hourly Update."

Additional titles in the top ten included "Pod Save America," "The Ben Shapiro Show," "Pardon My Take," "The Dan Bongino Show," and "Stuff You Should Know."

Podtrac's rankings are based on measurement data for unique U.S. monthly audience and downloads from podcasts that participate in Podtrac's measurement system during the full month being reported.