Top 10 Most Popular Podcasts in the World

"What is the most popular podcast in the world?" sounds like a question with a clean answer. It does not have one. Ask three different sources and you will get three different lists, sometimes with three different shows at number one — not because anyone is wrong, but because they are quietly measuring different things.

The trouble is that "popular" hides three separate metrics. Downloads count how many times an episode file was pulled, but they are opt-in and easily gamed. Listeners count actual humans on a given platform, but no platform sees the whole audience. Reach counts how many people across all platforms have heard a show, but the only rigorous reach survey covers a single country. And no chart in existence measures every platform in every country — YouTube, now a giant of podcasting, is missing from most audio rankings entirely.

So this article does two things no single chart can. It gives you the best global ranking available — Spotify's, the only one that spans the whole world — then corroborates it with the most rigorous US ranking, Edison's, staying honest throughout about what each list captures and misses. The gap between them is the most interesting part of the story.

Methodology

There is no perfect "world" podcast chart, so this article uses the two best sources and keeps them separate rather than blending them into a false consensus.

• The headline global list is Spotify Wrapped 2025 (Top Podcasts Globally, published 3 December 2025). It is the only genuinely worldwide ranking, but it counts Spotify listeners only. Sources even disagree on its exact formula — some describe it as unique users who listened two minutes or more, others as total minutes played — so we simply say the ranking is by Spotify listening and leave the fine print there.
• The corroborating US list is Edison Podcast Metrics (US, Q1 2026, published 17 April 2026). Edison measures cross-platform reach by survey — how many Americans age 13 and up heard a show across every platform — which makes it the most methodologically robust ranking anywhere. Its blind spot is geography: it is US only. An independent Triton Digital survey for the same quarter reproduced nearly the same top six.
• Download charts (Podtrac) have a fatal blind spot. They count downloads, but only for shows that opt in — and The Joe Rogan Experience does not participate. The single most popular podcast on earth is therefore absent from download-based rankings entirely. Anyone quoting a download chart as "the biggest podcasts" is quoting a list with a Rogan-shaped hole in it.
• Apple publishes two charts with two different number ones. Its Top Shows chart, based on listening, is led by Rogan. Its separate Most Followed chart, based on new followers, is led by Mel Robbins. New followers and actual listening are not the same thing, so a show can top one Apple chart and not the other.
• The platform shift that explains a lot: YouTube is now the number one podcast platform in the US, with 37% of weekly podcast consumers naming it their primary service (Edison, 2026). Video-native listening is invisible to audio-download charts — another reason those charts undercount the biggest shows.

For those reasons the two rankings below are kept separate rather than stitched into one list more confident than the data allows.

The 10 Most Popular Podcasts in the World

This is the headline list, from Spotify Wrapped 2025's Top Podcasts Globally — the only chart that ranks shows by listening across the entire world. Spotify did not publish per-show figures, so there are no numbers to quote; the value is the order, and the order is global. It runs in reverse, from ten up to one.

10. The Tucker Carlson Show

After leaving Fox News in 2023, Tucker Carlson rebuilt himself as an independent broadcaster, and The Tucker Carlson Show is now one of the most-listened political programs on the planet. It trades on long, unhurried interviews with figures the mainstream press rarely gives an hour to — precisely what draws its audience.

The newest entry on the list, it is a reminder that podcasting rewards conviction over polish: divisive by design, the show converts controversy into exactly the kind of sustained listening these charts capture.

Global rank: No. 10 (Spotify Wrapped 2025).

9. On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Former monk turned author and life coach Jay Shetty has built On Purpose into one of the largest health-and-wellness podcasts in the world. The format is warm and interview-led, with guests from A-list actors to therapists, all pointed at one theme: how to live with more intention.

Shetty's reach is amplified by a huge social footprint — his short, quotable clips travel far beyond the podcast feed, the same engine that powers the biggest names among the most-followed Instagram accounts. It is one of three self-improvement shows in the global top ten, a genre that barely registered a few years ago and now shapes the whole chart.

Global rank: No. 9 (Spotify Wrapped 2025).

8. Modern Wisdom

Chris Williamson started Modern Wisdom as a side project while working as a nightclub promoter in northern England; it is now a fixture of the global top ten. The show is a long-form conversation series on psychology, philosophy, self-improvement, and culture, and Williamson's calm, curious interviewing has made it a favorite among listeners who want Rogan-length depth with a self-development slant.

Its rise is one of the clearest examples of podcasting's flat playing field: no network, no legacy-media launchpad, just years of consistent episodes and widely shared clips. It now books the same caliber of guest as shows with far longer histories.

Global rank: No. 8 (Spotify Wrapped 2025).

7. Crime Junkie

Crime Junkie, hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat, is the biggest true-crime podcast in the world and the genre's flag-bearer here. Every week it walks listeners through a single case in tight, briskly told detail, a format so effective it built one of the most devoted audiences in podcasting and spawned an entire media company around it.

True crime is a load-bearing pillar of the medium, and Crime Junkie is its center of gravity — the only pure true-crime show in the global top ten, though the US ranking below shows the genre runs far deeper than a single entry suggests.

Global rank: No. 7 (Spotify Wrapped 2025).

6. Huberman Lab

Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman turned Huberman Lab into a global phenomenon by doing something that sounds unpromising on paper: delivering dense, science-based episodes on sleep, focus, exercise, and health, often running two or three hours. The bet that a mass audience wanted the underlying mechanisms, not just the life-hack, paid off enormously.

Huberman Lab sits where the two fastest-growing corners of podcasting meet — science and self-improvement — and its influence reaches far past its own feed, with individual segments becoming some of the most viral short podcast clips online. It is proof that "educational" and "hugely popular" are no longer opposites in audio.

Global rank: No. 6 (Spotify Wrapped 2025).

5. This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von

Comedian Theo Von hosts This Past Weekend, blending his Louisiana-drawl storytelling with genuinely searching interviews. Von's gift is disarming guests into candor, which is why the show draws everyone from fellow comedians to athletes to, during the 2024 election cycle, some of the most-discussed political figures in the country.

That mix of comedy and unexpectedly serious conversation has made This Past Weekend one of the few shows to rank high on both the global Spotify chart and the US Edison list, and put Von in the small group of hosts who can turn a single episode into national news.

Global rank: No. 5 (Spotify Wrapped 2025).

4. Call Her Daddy

Alex Cooper's Call Her Daddy is the biggest podcast in the world hosted by a woman, and one of the great reinvention stories in the medium. It began as a brash, boundary-pushing show about sex and dating and matured into a marquee interview program, drawing candid, headline-making conversations out of A-list musicians, actors, and public figures.

Cooper's move to a new platform home in 2024 only widened her reach, and Call Her Daddy now sits in the top handful on both the global and US charts — proof that the interview format at the top of these lists is no longer the domain of male hosts.

Global rank: No. 4 (Spotify Wrapped 2025).

3. The Mel Robbins Podcast

Author and former lawyer Mel Robbins has ridden a wave of self-improvement demand to number three worldwide. The Mel Robbins Podcast delivers direct, practical guidance on motivation, habits, and relationships, and her 2025 "Let Them Theory" became a genuine cultural catchphrase that pulled a huge new audience toward the show.

Robbins is also the host at the center of the measurement puzzle above: she tops Apple's Most Followed chart, which counts new followers rather than listening. That accolade is real, but it is a different achievement from leading on listening — a distinction most "most popular podcast" headlines gloss over.

Global rank: No. 3 (Spotify Wrapped 2025).

2. The Diary of a CEO

British entrepreneur and investor Steven Bartlett has turned The Diary of a CEO into a global juggernaut. What began as a business-founder interview series has broadened into sprawling conversations about health, psychology, longevity, and relationships — a shift that took it from strong performer to worldwide top-two show.

Bartlett's edge is production and packaging: the show is filmed, clipped, and distributed with the discipline of a media company, which is how a UK-made podcast built such a commanding global audience. Its number two placement, ahead of every American show except one, is the strongest sign that this really is a world chart and not a US one in disguise.

Global rank: No. 2 (Spotify Wrapped 2025) — the top show made outside the US.

1. The Joe Rogan Experience

No podcast on earth is more popular than The Joe Rogan Experience. Rogan's marathon, free-ranging conversations — with comedians, scientists, fighters, musicians, politicians, and conspiracy theorists alike — have made him the defining figure of the entire medium, and his show has now finished number one on Spotify's global chart for a sixth consecutive year.

What makes the top spot so decisive is that it is not a Spotify quirk. Rogan is number one on essentially every major ranking that includes him: Spotify globally, Spotify in the US, Apple's Top Shows, and YouTube, where his video episodes pull viewership most television cannot touch — several of them appear on our list of the most-viewed podcast episodes ever. The only charts that omit him are download-based ones like Podtrac, and only because his show does not opt in. By every measure that actually tries to count Rogan, he wins.

Global rank: No. 1 (Spotify Wrapped 2025) — six years running.

Summary of the Global Top 10

Source: Spotify Newsroom, Wrapped 2025, Top Podcasts Globally, published 3 December 2025. Ranked by Spotify listening; Spotify did not publish per-show figures.

The US Picture: Edison's Top 10 (Q1 2026)

The Spotify list above is global but sees only Spotify. To check it against a different method, here is a separate ranking: Edison Podcast Metrics for the United States, first quarter of 2026, published 17 April 2026. Edison measures cross-platform reach by survey — the share of Americans who heard a show across every platform, not just one — which is why it is widely treated as the most reliable US ranking. An independent Triton Digital survey for the same quarter produced nearly the same top six, which Edison notes were unchanged from Q4 2025.

Do not read this as a re-ranking of the global list. It covers a different geography by a different method, and it surfaces shows the Spotify chart does not — American true-crime and daily-news podcasts that are huge at home but never crack the worldwide top ten.

1. The Joe Rogan Experience — number one again, this time by US reach.
2. Crime Junkie — the true-crime heavyweight ranks even higher in the US than worldwide.
3. The Daily — The New York Times' flagship morning news podcast, the leader of the daily-news genre.
4. Call Her Daddy — Alex Cooper's show is a top-four presence on both charts.
5. SmartLess — the comedy interview show hosted by Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett.
6. Stuff You Should Know — the long-running explainer podcast and one of the most durable brands in audio.
7. Dateline NBC — the television true-crime institution, now a podcasting powerhouse.
8. This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von — one of only four shows (with Joe Rogan, Crime Junkie, and Call Her Daddy) to appear in both the global and US top tens.
9. MrBallen: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories — the biggest of podcasting's YouTube-native storytelling shows.
10. New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce — the Kelce brothers' NFL show, a mainstream crossover hit.

Sources: Edison Research, corroborated by Podnews.

The two lists agree on the important thing and disagree on the rest — exactly what you would expect from two honest measurements of different audiences. Rogan tops both; after that, the US chart tilts toward true crime and daily news while the global chart leans into self-improvement and long-form interviews, the same split between homegrown American formats and shows that travel worldwide that you see among the most popular YouTube channels.

The One Thing Every Chart Agrees On

For all the disagreement, one superlative survives every method: The Joe Rogan Experience is the most popular podcast in the world. It is number one on Spotify globally, on Spotify in the US, on Apple's Top Shows, on YouTube, and on Edison's US reach ranking — absent only from the download charts it declines to join. When a show leads every ranking that includes it and has held Spotify's global crown for six straight years, the debate is over.

Everything below the top spot, though, is a snapshot in motion. These charts move constantly — Spotify publishes a fresh Wrapped every December, Edison releases new numbers every quarter — so shows climb and slip between updates. The rankings here reflect the most recent authoritative data as of mid-2026: Spotify Wrapped 2025 for the world, Edison's Q1 2026 report for the US. The names may reshuffle by the next cycle. The one at the top almost certainly will not.