According to Apple Podcasts, these were the most popular podcast episodes of 2024
- Apple has shared the most popular podcasts of 2024
- True crime, politics and interview shows dominate
- You can view statistics for your country in the Podcasts app
‘Tis the season for looking back on the past twelve months – we’re now seeing announcements every day about the apps of the year, the movies of the year and annual music reviews – and now Apple has released stats on the best podcasts of 2024.
The charts include the most popular programs overall, the most popular new programs, the most popular individual episodes, the most shared programs, and the programs with the most subscribers throughout the year. You can view the results for your own part of the world by opening the Browse tab in the iOS Podcasts app.
For the US, the top three shows overall were news show The Daily, true crime podcast Crime Junkie and interview series The Joe Rogan Experience. In Britain, the podcast charts were topped by The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett, The Rest Is Politics and The Rest Is History.
When it comes to the best new shows for 2024, the US list was topped by The Tucker Carlson Show, Three (true crime) and Mortal Sin (true crime again). In the UK the winners were The Rest Is Entertainment, The Rest Is Politics (US version) and So Wrong It’s Right by Olivia Attwood – so you can see some trends.
Top episodes
For top episodes in the US, we have an episode of Crime Junkie about the Alphabet murders, Joe Rogan’s interview with Donald Trump and the Daily episode about the debate between Harris and Trump during the US elections.
In the UK, the top three episodes were claimed by the British election episode of The Rest Is Politics, the Paul Rudd episode of Off Menu with Ed Game and James Acaster, and the Angela Rayner episode of The Rest Is Politics.
Politics, true crime and interview shows then dominated the podcast charts in 2024, but keep in mind this is based on listening via the Apple Podcasts app and not elsewhere (like Spotify, for example).
As for the most shared shows we recommend to friends and family, the top three were Huberman Lab (health), Scamanda (true crime again), and Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus in the US, and Zoe Science & Nutrition, the rest is politics and the rest is history in Britain.
