iHeart Audience Network averaged 67.3 million weekly downloads in the United States in September 2026, according to Triton Digital, which today released its US Podcast Ranker for the four-week reporting period from August 31 to September 27, 2026. That is up from 65.9 million in August, a gain of roughly 1.4 million weekly downloads, and it kept iHeart at the top of Triton's Top Sales Network Report for another month. Audioboom stayed second with 15.5 million, and Cumulus Podcast Network held third with 2.9 million.

In Short

Triton Digital counts how many times podcasts from different companies get downloaded in the US each week, and the same three companies and the same three shows came out on top in September as in August. The biggest seller, iHeart, and the second-biggest, Audioboom, both grew, so advertisers buying podcast ads through them were reaching slightly more downloads than a month earlier. The order of the market did not change, which means the gap between iHeart and everyone else is still very large.

The network table

Triton ranks sales networks, meaning the companies that sell advertising against a group of podcasts, by average weekly downloads. The September figures in Triton's announcement cover only the top three:

  • iHeart Audience Network: 67.3 million average weekly downloads, first place
  • Audioboom: 15.5 million, second place
  • Cumulus Podcast Network: 2.9 million, third place

The comparison with the previous month is straightforward because both periods ran four weeks. In August, the reporting window ran from August 3 to August 30, 2026, and iHeart's 65.9 million weekly downloads were 4.4 times Audioboom's 14.9 million, with Cumulus at 2,952,800.

By PPC Land's calculation from the rounded figures, iHeart grew about 2.1% month over month, while Audioboom grew about 4%. Audioboom's faster rate narrowed the ratio between the two only slightly, from 4.4 times in August to about 4.3 times in September. In absolute terms the gap widened, from roughly 51.0 million weekly downloads in August to 51.8 million in September, because iHeart's base is so much larger. A 4% gain on 14.9 million adds about 600,000; a 2.1% gain on 65.9 million adds about 1.4 million.

Cumulus is the harder number to read. Triton reports it as 2.9 million, and its August figure, published to the download, was 2,952,800. Rounded to one decimal place, both months read the same. The September release does not give an unrounded figure, so whether Cumulus edged up, edged down or stayed flat cannot be determined from it.

Taken together, the top three networks averaged about 85.7 million weekly downloads in September, against roughly 83.8 million in August, again by PPC Land's calculation. iHeart accounted for about 78.5% of that combined total in both months. Triton did not include positions four to 20 in its September announcement. In August, BBC was fourth with 2,220,993 and the 17 networks outside the top three combined to 12,497,377, less than Audioboom's total on its own.

The shows at the top

The show-level ranking, Triton's Top Podcasts by Weekly Average Downloads, was unchanged in its top six. According to Triton's ranker for September 2026:

  1. Stuff You Should Know - iHeart Audience Network, represented by iHeartRadio
  2. Pod Save America - Audioboom
  3. My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - iHeart Audience Network, represented by iHeartRadio
  4. The Dan Bongino Show - Cumulus Podcast Network, represented by Cumulus Podcast Network / Westwood One
  5. The Bulwark Podcast - Audioboom
  6. Global News Podcast - BBC, represented by BBC and iHeartRadio

That is the same order as August. Stuff You Should Know held first place again; Pod Save America stayed second, and My Favorite Murder third. Triton does not publish download counts for individual shows in the ranker, so the size of the lead at the top, or the margin between second and third, is not visible. Only the order is.

The composition of the top six mirrors the network table. iHeart and Audioboom each place two shows. Cumulus and BBC place one each. Two of the six are political programmes - Pod Save America and The Bulwark Podcast - both sold by Audioboom, in a month that fell inside the run-up to the November 2026 US midterm elections.

One named debut

Triton named one new entrant: The Right Time with Bomani Jones, sold through iHeart Audience Network. The announcement says debuts for September included that show "and more", without giving its rank or listing the other new arrivals. On Triton's ranker, a "Debut" tag marks a show that has appeared in the ranking for the first time within the last 13 months, while "Return" marks a show that is back after missing earlier periods.

For comparison, August produced six debuts, all in the bottom half of the 150-show table: Burden of Guilt Season 3 at 88th, Legally Brunette at 127th, Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski at 138th, Laugh with Me at 144th, Your Daily Bible Verse at 149th and This Podcast Will Kill You at 150th. Four of the six were iHeart shows.

How the counting works

Triton ranks networks and shows on downloads measured by its Podcast Metrics service, in accordance with version 2.2 of the IAB Podcast Technical Measurement Guidelines. Triton says the service is certified by the IAB Tech Lab. A download, under Triton's definitions, covers complete, progressive and partial downloads after the guideline's filtering rules - removing spiders and bots, data-centre traffic and requests under one minute of content - and after collapsing repeated requests from the same IP address, user agent, episode and date. That filtering is aimed at the kind of invalid traffic that inflates raw request logs.

According to Triton, the measurement "eliminates inconsistent measurement practices and self-reported data, providing content creators, marketers, media buyers, and the audio industry at large with validated and transparent podcast audience data."

One caveat applies to everything above. The ranking only includes networks that opt into Triton measurement, so it is a table of participants rather than a census of the US market. Networks that do not use Triton Podcast Metrics do not appear. Networks can also have their downloads aggregated into a third-party sales house they have delegated ad sales to, which is why Global News Podcast lists BBC as its network and "BBC and iHeartRadio" as its sales representation. Average weekly downloads are calculated over four- or five-week periods, Monday to Sunday, aligned closely with calendar months, which Triton says limits distortions from months of different lengths.

The guideline version question

Triton's September ranker was measured under version 2.2 of the IAB guidelines, but the standard has since moved. On September 29, 2026, IAB Tech Lab finalised version 2.3 of its podcast counting rules, extending coverage to video episodes distributed through open RSS feeds or server-side delivery. IAB Tech Lab had released version 2.3 for public comment on July 21, 2026. Neither document set a date for certified companies to move from version 2.2 to version 2.3, and the September release does not say when Triton intends to switch. That matters for anyone comparing month-over-month numbers into 2027: a change in counting rules is a break in the series, not a change in audience.

Why the ranker matters to buyers

For media buyers, a ranker built on certified downloads is one of the few shared reference points in podcast advertising, where much inventory is still sold on publisher-reported numbers. The money involved is substantial. United States podcast advertising revenue reached $2.9 billion in 2025, and iHeartMedia reported second-quarter 2026 podcast revenue of $162.1 million, up 20.7%.

Triton's download data also feeds planning tools beyond the monthly table. Nielsen integrated Triton's Demos+ podcast data into Nielsen Media Impact on April 27, 2026, and Triton has switched on Demos+ demographic targeting inside the Triton Ad Platform. Triton's own targeting research found that restricting spend to the top 50 podcasts limits possible reach to 49% of monthly podcast consumers - a reminder that a stable top six says little about where most listening sits.

Audioboom's position has particular financial weight. The company, which has grown its US slate since Crooked Media joined the Audioboom Creator Network during the first quarter of 2026, sold 33 of the top 150 US shows in August. A week before the September ranker, Audioboom lifted its 2026 adjusted EBITDA forecast to at least $7.7 million after third-quarter revenue rose 17% to $23.8 million. The September download gain covers the last month of that quarter. Pod Save America, a Crooked Media show, holds second place among all measured US podcasts.

Other measurement firms tell a partly different story, because they count different things. Podtrac's September 2026 data, released on October 7, measured unique monthly audience and monthly streams and downloads rather than weekly averages, and showed 8 of 19 US podcast publishers gaining downloads, with iHeart first. Podtrac had earlier moved its YouTube podcast rankings to engaged views on September 3, 2026. Triton's ranker, by contrast, counts file downloads only, so video consumption on platforms such as YouTube falls outside it. Downloads of older episodes count toward the weekly averages too, so a show's back catalogue contributes alongside new releases.

None of that changes September's main result. The networks and shows at the top of Triton's table in August were the same ones there in September, and the two largest networks both grew.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Triton Digital, the audio measurement and technology company, and the networks at the top of its US table: iHeart Audience Network, Audioboom and Cumulus Podcast Network, plus shows including Stuff You Should Know, Pod Save America and My Favorite Murder.

What: Triton's September 2026 US Podcast Ranker put iHeart first with 67.3 million average weekly downloads, up from 65.9 million in August, with Audioboom second at 15.5 million (from 14.9 million) and Cumulus third at 2.9 million. The top six shows held the same order as in August, and The Right Time with Bomani Jones was named among the debuts.

When: The ranker was released today, October 22, 2026, and covers August 31 to September 27, 2026.

Where: The United States, measuring downloads by US-based listeners for networks that opt into Triton's Podcast Metrics.

Why: Certified download rankings are one of the few shared benchmarks podcast ad buyers have; September shows growth for the two largest networks but no change in the order of the market, with a gap of about 51.8 million weekly downloads between first and second.