The Infinite Dial from Edison Research is America’s longest running survey of digital media consumer behavior, tracking behaviors since 1998. Our insight this week highlights what percent of monthly online audio listeners are also weekly consumers, and how that has changed over time.

Online audio sources have emerged as wildly popular listening platforms and services, significantly changing how Americans engage with music and spoken-word content throughout their day. In 2006, a little more than half (57%) of U.S. monthly online audio listeners age 12+ also listened weekly. Over the next 20 years, the conversion of monthly online audio listeners to weekly has increased steadily. In 2026, 94% of monthly online audio audiences listen weekly, illustrating how online audio consumption has become a habitual part of Americans’ lives.

The growth in reach and engagement of online audio is just one example of the many interesting datapoints The Infinite Dial holds. The 2026 Infinite Dial study from Edison Research, sponsored by SiriusXM Media, showcases numerous changes in how our society uses media and technology. Find the 2026 full report and webinar here.

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Edison Research at SSRS announces the Top 10 Podcast Networks in the U.S. based on average weekly network reach for the first quarter of 2026.

Spotify takes over the top spot, moving SiriusXM Podcast Network to #2, followed by iHeartPodcasts at #3. Red Seat Ventures joins the Top 10 list for the first time, debuting at #4. It is the only new name on the list for Q1 2026, replacing The Walt Disney Company, which ranked #10 in Q4 2025.

The Top Podcast Networks are ranked by the reach of the network that represents the advertising for the show, not the platform or app that audiences use to access podcasts.

Who does it measure?     

The list ranks podcast networks based on total audience reach from Edison Podcast Metrics.      

How was it measured?     

In the first quarter of 2026, Edison Research at SSRS fielded surveys every day with a total sample size of 5,163 weekly podcast consumers ages 13 and older.       

How is consumption recorded?     

Respondents are asked on an unaided basis to list all the shows they listened to or watched in the week before being contacted and then consumption is rolled up to the network level based on those responses.

How are rankings compiled?     

Rankings are compiled by measuring the total unduplicated reach of all the shows represented by a given network.       

How is the data weighted?     

Data is weighted to the universe of weekly podcast consumers obtained from The Infinite Dial 2026, also from Edison Research at SSRS.        

For more information about Edison Podcast Metrics, contact Melissa Kiesche at mkiesche@ssrs.com.

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Since 2014, when Edison Research launched Share of Ear®, total daily audio time among people in the U.S. ages 13+ has hovered around four hours. Further exploration into Share of Ear, the only audio measurement tool that tracks all listening platforms, shows significant differences in time spent with audio by age groups.

Share of Ear shows that 13-34 year-olds spend the most daily time listening to audio compared to people 35-54 and 55+. As of Q1 2026, 13-34 year-olds spend four hours and thirty minutes with audio daily. It’s important to note that people between the ages of 35 and 54 also spend a significant portion of their day with audio, at four hours and three minutes. Americans 55+ also devote a respectable amount of time to audio listening daily, at three hours and seventeen minutes. Daily time spent listening to audio includes consumption of AM/FM Radio and radio streams, streaming music, music videos on YouTube, podcasts (including video podcasts), SiriusXM, owned music, audiobooks, and TV music channels.

A full subscription to Share of Ear not only lets users understand how much time different groups spend with audio daily, but how that time is divided amongst various platforms, locations, and types of content. Keep reading this newsletter to see more interesting datapoints from Share of Ear and contact our team to learn more about access to the dataset.

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Call Her Daddy and Hot Mess feature two of the most talked-about female hosts in the podcast industry, who also happen to be having a very publicized feud. Hosts and commentators have taken to social media and other podcasts to dissect and discuss the recent back-and-forth between Alex Cooper and Alix Earle. One piece of information that hasn’t been discussed and can only be found in Edison Podcast Metrics is how much audience these two rivals share with each other.

Both Call Her Daddy, hosted by Alex Cooper, and Hot Mess, hosted by Alix Earle, reach highly sought-after podcast audiences. Call Her Daddy has one of the largest weekly podcast audiences, reaching approximately 5.7 million Americans. Hot Mess has an engaged audience of young and female listeners, with 93% of its weekly consumers being between the ages of 18 and 34 and another 93% being female. Those who listen to or watch Hot Mess in a typical week also engage with Cooper’s show regularly, with. As of Q4 2025, 45% of Hot Mess listeners also tune into Call Her Daddy weekly. Edison Podcast Metrics has a feature that allows subscribers to look at listener duplication across podcasts, so they can not only understand their specific audiences but also the audience of their biggest competitors.

The media landscape is constantly changing, and high-profile events like the Alex vs. Alix feud can have major impacts on audience engagement. The Edison Podcast Metrics interactive dashboards allow subscribers to pull strategic insights and datapoints as news and events break. Contact our team today to learn more about a subscription to Edison Podcast Metrics.

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Kids aren’t only streaming their favorite shows or scrolling on social media, they are also streaming and watching podcasts. Edison Podcast Metrics asks weekly podcast consumers if their children also listen to or watch podcasts and what titles those young audiences engaged with in the past week

Back in 2024, we released the Top Five Kids Podcasts. Now, for the first time ever, we’re releasing the 2025 Top Ten Kids Podcasts for people 12 and under.

The Top Ten Kids Podcasts Among Kids 12 and Under are:

1. Wow in the World 

2. Brains On! Science podcast for kids 

3. Story Pirates

4. Circle Round 

5. But Why: A Podcast for Curious Kids

6. Smash Boom Best

7. Tumble Science Podcast for Kids 

8. Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls

9. What If World – Stories for Kids

10. Little Stories for Tiny People: Anytime and Bedtime Stories for Kids

As with many older podcast listeners, kids are drawn to shows that feature immersive stories and help them learn new and interesting things. The titles listed in the graphic above are already engaging with the next generation of spoken-word audio consumers, helping to solidify podcasts into their audio listening habits. Find out more about a full subscription to Edison Podcast Metrics, the only podcast measurement service that measures consumption, not downloads, across all networks, shows, and platforms.

The post The Top Ten Kids Podcasts appeared first on Edison Research at SSRS.

The Joe Rogan Experience, Crime Junkie, and The Daily top the list, as they did in Q4 2025. The top six shows remain in the same rank order as Q4, with other rank changes in the Top 10 noted below parenthetically. The full list of Top 50 podcasts is below. 

1. The Joe Rogan Experience  
2. Crime Junkie
3. The Daily
4. Call Her Daddy
5. Smartless
6. Stuff You Should Know
7. Dateline NBC (+2 rank positions since Q4 2025)
8. This Past Weekend with Theo Von
9. MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories (+8 rank positions since Q4 2025)
10. New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce

And the Award Goes To…

After winning the inaugural Golden Globe for Best Podcast in January 2026, Good Hang with Amy Poehler soars from 38th to 13th in one quarter, marking the second consecutive quarter the show has reached a record high.  Other Golden Globe Best Podcast finalists that moved up the ranker: The Mel Robbins Podcast (+3), Up First (+1), and Armchair Expert (+12).

Notable Moves:

• The Giggly Squad breaks into the top 50 for the first time. It won Best Podcast of the Year at the iHeart Podcast Awards in March 2026.
• The Herd with Colin Cowherd hits a record high. Cowherd received criticism after launching an AI version of himself.
• The Dan Bongino Show reenters the top 50. Bongino returned to podcasting in February after a stint as FBI deputy director.
• Bubbling under: Rappers Joe and Jada reach 57th after climbing the ranks consistently since debuting in May 2025.

About Edison Podcast Metrics

The podcast show ranker is derived from data collected continuously during the first quarter of 2026, interviewing 5,163 weekly podcast consumers ages 13 and older in the U.S. Participants indicate which podcasts they listened to or watched in the past week along with a variety of demographic, psychographic, and purchase-behavior information. This ranker measures reach as a percentage of the weekly podcast audience.  

For more information on how to become a subscriber to the full datasets, please contact info@edisonresearch.com.

The post The Top 50 Podcasts in the U.S. Q1 2026 from Edison Podcast Metrics appeared first on Edison Research at SSRS.

Since Edison Research joined SSRS in the Fall of 2025, we have highlighted a number of findings from Sports Poll, another amazing product from SSRS.

We are excited to announce that starting tomorrow Sports Poll will have its own separate newsletter called Sports Poll Highlights. Each edition will deliver sharp analysis and key takeaways from over 30 years of Sports Poll, the world’s longest-running tracking study on sports. Subscribers to Weekly Insights have early access to our first issue and to register for Sports Poll Highlights.

The inaugural issue breaks down one of the longest-running questions on Sports Poll: “Who is your favorite professional athlete?”.

In Q1 2026, Lionel Messi ranks slightly ahead of LeBron James as favorite athlete. One of the two has ranked #1 each quarter since the end of 2023. Sports Poll has measured the favorite athlete of Americans 12+ continuously since its launch in 1995. Over 32 years, only eight athletes have ranked #1 for at least one quarter. Messi and James continue to rank 1-2 in Q1 2026, but favorites have clearly grown more fragmented over time. At 3%, Messi’s position in the top spot is far cry from Michael Jordan’s peak, when 19% named him as their favorite during the Bulls’ last championship in 1998.

Sign up at this link to receive Sports Poll Highlights each week. Upcoming topics include prediction markets, the Savannah Bananas, the impact of the World Cup, and NBA star power. Subscribe to this weekly newsletter if you love data and want a smarter way to follow the action. For more information on Sports Poll, please visit our website.

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Americans have more audio options than ever in the car. While competition for people’s ears has heightened in the car, one platform remains the clear leader: AM/FM Radio. Newly released Q1 2026 Share of Ear data shows that the majority of time spent listening to audio in the car among Americans 13+ goes to AM/FM Radio either over-the-air or through streams.

As of Q1 2026, 55% of in-car audio time is spent listening to AM/FM Radio. The next closest platform in the car is Streaming Audio. Time with Streaming Audio has grown over the 12-year history of Share of Ear but remains a distant competitor to AM/FM Radio among the total population ages 13+, with 16% of in-car audio time going to streaming platforms.

While streaming audio has gained considerable ground among Americans 13-34, AM/FM Radio remains the primary in-car listening platform. Among Americans 13-34, 46% of their in-car audio time is spent listening to AM/FM Radio and 30% with Streaming Audio sources.

Additional in-car listening platforms can be seen with a full Share of Ear subscription along with listening in other locations and by other age groups. Visit our website or contact our team to learn more about Share of Ear.

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This time of the year is one of the most active in sports, with the men’s and women’s NCAA Basketball tournaments, opening day for Major League Baseball, looming playoffs for the NBA and NHL, The Masters, and the upcoming NFL Draft. We can turn to Edison Podcast Metrics data to identify the Sports podcasts with the largest 13+ U.S. weekly audiences for the full year 2025.

Sports is one of the most popular podcast genres. The Sports podcast with the largest weekly audience is New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce. While the show launched in 2022, it made a splash on the Edison Podcast Metrics charts in the fourth quarter of 2023 when Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift’s romance went public. While that relationship helped the show attract an early audience, it has maintained consistent popularity.

Top spots also go to other well-known sports commentators. Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay, from iHeartPodcasts and Shay Shay Media, is the second largest sports podcast; The Pat McAfee Show is third. The graphic below shows the top 10 Sports podcasts as measured by Edison Podcast Metrics.

Genre is defined as the podcast’s ‘Primary Category’ in Apple Podcasts and is selected by the show’s producer. A full ranking of shows by genre is available via subscription to Edison Podcast Metrics. Rankings include consumption of video podcasts as well as audio-only. Contact our team to learn more about an Edison Podcast Metrics subscription.

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Edison Research at SSRS recently released the 2026 Infinite Dial, in partnership with SiriusXM Media. The Infinite Dial is America’s longest-running survey of digital media consumer behavior, tracked annually since 1998. The Infinite Dial has tracked social media usage since 2008, and usage is now reported by 85% of the U.S. 12+ population.

Social media is both widely used and widely criticized within our society, especially when it comes to the lasting effects it can have on young users. Data from the 2026 Infinite Dial does show that the majority of American adults do favor a ban for those under age 16. More than half of Americans aged 18 and older (57%) believe that social media should be banned for young people. Interestingly, we also see some variation by political party. Those who identify with the Republican Party are more likely to support a ban (64%) than those who identify with the Democratic Party.

In addition to social media usage and perceptions, the broader Infinite Dial report provides important benchmarks for behaviors around streaming audio, podcasting, radio, smart audio, and never-before-seen data on AI usage. Find the full presentation and webinar recording on our website.

Industry experts at Edison Research at SSRS are available to be featured in your next podcast, event, or media story. Email us at info@edisonresearch.com to talk to a member of our team today.

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