When it comes to podcasts, the ones that make us laugh are also the most popular, while series geared toward children and families are seeing growth.
Triton Digital’s Q1 2026 U.S. Podcast Ranker also found that listeners to business- and technology-themed podcasts have the most purchasing power. Its rankings show that, by genre, comedy placed 47 shows in the top 200, taking the top spot.
In a release, Triton cited comedy podcasts like “Smosh Reads Reddit Stories” and “Distractible” as driving listenership through storytelling focused on internet trends from platforms like Reddit.
Comedy was followed by the news category and then the society & culture category.
The iHeart Audience Network was the number one sales network by average weekly downloads for the quarter, followed by Audioboom and the Cumulus Podcast Network. (Those rankings only include sales networks measured by Triton.)
The top podcasts by average weekly downloads are “Pod Save America” on the Audioboom network, followed by “Stuff You Should Know” on iHeart and “The Dan Bongino Show” on Cumulus.
Triton Digital’s Podcast Metrics measurement service is produced in collaboration with Signal Hill Insights.
It is drawn from Triton Digital’s Podcast Metrics download data combined with survey data from an annual poll of approximately 12,000 U.S. adults aged 18 and over who listen to podcasts.
