Podtrac: Crime Junkie Tops June Podcast Rankings

RADIO ONLINE | Sunday, July 12, 2026 | 4:33pm CT

Podtrac

Podtrac has released its June 2026 podcast rankings, with Crime Junkie claiming the number one spot among the top U.S. podcasts, while seasonal declines in audience and downloads affected most podcast publishers and networks.

The true crime podcast from Audiochuck debuted at the top of the monthly ranking, pushing The Daily from The New York Times to No. 2. NPR's NPR News Now and Up First from NPR followed at Nos. 3 and 4, while Dateline NBC rounded out the top five.

Other top 10 podcasts included Fox News Hourly Update, Pod Save America, Pardon My Take, The Ben Shapiro Show and Stuff You Should Know. The biggest mover in the Top 20 was Rotten Mango, which climbed eight positions to No. 17, while Today, Explained rose two spots to No. 18.

Among podcast publishers, the iHeart Audience Network remained the industry's largest, reaching 55.1 million unique monthly U.S. listeners and generating 267.6 million U.S. streams and downloads across nearly 19,000 active shows. iHeartPodcasts retained the No. 2 position with 29.5 million monthly listeners, followed by NPR Sales Network, Libsyn, and Vox Media.

Rounding out the top 10 publishers were PodcastOne, The Walt Disney Company, Fox Audio Network, DailyWire+ and Barstool Sports.

Podtrac said unique monthly audiences and total downloads declined for most publishers in June, consistent with seasonal patterns observed in previous years. Despite the month-to-month softness, the rankings continued to reflect the dominance of major podcast networks and established news, true crime and sports programming in attracting U.S. listeners.