Edison Research has released a Podcast Metrics ranker showing the top 50 Podcasts that reach the most people age 13+ in the U.S. for Q2 2023.

I took the US version and compared it to the latest Australian Podcast Ranker to see how much overlap there was in what we are listening to.

Of the top 100 most listened to podcasts in June 2023 according to our ranker:

• 76 of the 100 are Australian made
• Only one American podcast is in our top 10, Stuff You Should Know at No 9
• Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes & Will Arnett’s SmartLess is a hit here and overseas, 10 in the US, ranked 12 here
• There are just nine non-Australian made podcasts in the top 50
• Of the nine, seven are US, two are UK podcasts (On Purpose with Jay Shetty at No 16, No Such Thing as a Fish at 31)
• We don’t care for overseas news podcasts
• Two of the four US podcasts in our top 20 were true crime (Crime Junkie at 11, Morbid at 12)
• One US podcast, The Mel Robbins podcast (No 46 on the APR), doesn’t feature in the US Top 50

And finally,

• Where is Joe Rogan?

I can’t believe I hadn’t noticed before now that Spotify original, The Joe Rogan Experience, doesn’t feature on our ranker, despite being on top of the US version, and of the Chartable Australian Spotify rankings. Neither is US No 5, Call Her Daddy (a Spotify production) or, closer to home, The Toni and Ryan Podcast, who went exclusively to Spotify a year ago.

Information on the CRA website about the Australian Podcast Ranker says:

 “It is designed to assist brands and agencies make informed decisions on where to place their podcast advertising dollars.”

Which is something I’m sure Spotify would be interested in for it’s stable of creators.

It’s always seemed strange to me that the Super Radio Network’s owner Bill Caralis would continue to choose not to have his Sydney flagship station 2SM featured in the GfK Radio 360 Surveys, when he’s happy enough to allow his other provincial stations this measure.

Is the same thing at play with Spotify and the Australian Podcast ranker?

Do other major podcasts and networks choose not to be represented because of the relative smallness of the Australian audience size?

Have they just “not got around to it”?

Or has it something to do with a cost involved, and does that impact small and independent creators of podcasts too?