Triton Digital on September 17, 2026 published its U.S. Podcast Ranker for August 2026, covering the four weeks from August 3 to August 30. iHeart Audience Network again held first place among sales networks with 65,896,118 average weekly downloads, ahead of Audioboom at 14,940,675 and Cumulus Podcast Network at 2,952,800, while Stuff You Should Know remained the most downloaded individual show in the United States.

In Short

Triton Digital, a company that counts podcast downloads, published its August 2026 list of the biggest US podcast sellers and shows on September 17. iHeart's network was counted at about 66 million downloads a week, more than four times second-placed Audioboom, and Stuff You Should Know was the most downloaded show. The list only covers companies that opt in to Triton's measurement, and some large sellers such as SiriusXM and NPR do not appear in it at all. A separate Triton survey of 3,000 listeners, covering April to June, ranks shows very differently, so the two lists answer different questions for anyone buying podcast advertising.

One very large entry at the top

According to Triton Digital, the Top Sales Network Report placed iHeart Audience Network first once more, with Audioboom second and Cumulus Podcast Network third. The distance between them is the story. iHeart's weekly average was more than four times Audioboom's and more than 22 times the figure for Cumulus.

Added together, the 20 networks in the table recorded 96,286,970 average weekly downloads, a total PPC Land calculated from the published rows. iHeart accounted for slightly more than two thirds of that sum. The top three together accounted for 87%. The remaining 17 networks combined came to 12,497,377 - less than Audioboom on its own.

Below the top three, positions four to nine did not move. The BBC recorded 2,220,993 average weekly downloads, Salem Podcast Network 1,485,009, PRX 1,401,542, American Public Media Group 1,298,362, Lemonada Media 1,068,313 and Gamut Podcast Network 1,010,199. Then the figures fall away sharply: Beasley Media Group, up two places to 10th, recorded 607,374, roughly 40% below Gamut, while All Things Comedy slipped two places to 12th. In Touch Ministries returned at 20th with 184,915 average weekly downloads from just eight active podcasts.

Networks and the companies that sell them

The table carries a second column that matters for buyers: sales representation, the organisation that actually sells the advertising. For most entries the two are the same. For several they are not. The BBC is represented by "BBC and iHeartRadio," CBC/Radio-Canada by Acast, KUOW by Podglomerate, and Cumulus by "Cumulus Podcast Network / Westwood One."

According to Triton's methodology notes, networks may have their downloads aggregated into another entity to which they have delegated advertising sales, such as a third-party sales house or representation firm. The same paragraph adds that a network may also have its downloads reported separately. The documents do not say whether the BBC's 2.2 million weekly downloads are counted inside iHeart's total as well as on their own row, and the wording permits either reading.

Catalogue size is only partly visible. The "active podcasts" column is capped at "500+", and five networks hit that cap: iHeart, Audioboom, the BBC, Salem and Prisa Radio. For the others the counts range from 424 at Cumulus to eight at In Touch Ministries. On the disclosed counts, In Touch Ministries generated the highest average per active title, at about 23,100 weekly downloads, against roughly 7,000 at Cumulus and about 4,000 at Gamut.

A rounding inconsistency

Triton's release rounds iHeart to 65.9 million and Audioboom to 14.9 million, both correct to one decimal place. It gives Cumulus as 2.9 million. The table figure of 2,952,800 rounds to 3.0 million on the same basis. The difference is small, but the table is the more precise of the two sources, and it is the one used throughout this article.

Who is not in the table

Download rankings, according to Triton's methodology, "require participating networks to opt into measurement by Triton Digital." That condition shapes the chart more than any single month's movement.

In the November 2023 period, SiriusXM Podcast Network ranked first with 43.7 million average weekly downloads, followed by Wondery and Audacy. iHeart Audience Network entered the rankings in the May 2024 period, taking first place with 67.4 million average weekly downloads, and Triton expanded the podcast chart to 150 shows to accommodate the new catalogue. By September 2024, iHeart recorded 69.2 million, SiriusXM 41.6 million and NPR 26.1 million. In the December 2024 table, released on January 16, 2025, NPR ranked second with 24.5 million and Audacy third with 11.9 million, behind iHeart's 62.7 million.

None of SiriusXM, NPR, Audacy or Wondery appears among the 20 networks in the August 2026 table. The documents give no reason for their absence, and none is offered here. The arithmetic consequence is plain enough, though. The third-placed network in December 2024 recorded 11.9 million weekly downloads; the third-placed network in August 2026 recorded under 3 million, roughly a quarter of that. That shift describes who is in the table, not necessarily how many people listen to podcasts.

iHeart's own figure looks steady by comparison. Its August 2026 average sits inside the 62.7 million to 69.2 million range recorded across the 2024 periods PPC Land covered. Triton's release materials describe iHeart as extending its lead over the field. The documents supplied contain no July 2026 figures, so that description cannot be checked against them.

A metric that no longer appears

The 2024 tables reported people as well as files. In May 2024, iHeart's 67.4 million weekly downloads sat alongside 18.6 million average weekly users. According to Triton, the monthly Top Podcasts by Weekly Average Users and Top Sales Networks by Weekly Average Users rankers have been retired, and the last active reporting period was June 2025. The monthly chart now ranks by downloads alone. How many distinct listeners stand behind 65,896,118 weekly file requests? The August documents do not say.

Inside the 150-show chart

The Top Podcasts by Weekly Average Downloads list ranks 150 shows for listeners located in the United States. The top six did not change: Stuff You Should Know (iHeart), Pod Save America (Audioboom), My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark (iHeart), The Dan Bongino Show (Cumulus), The Bulwark Podcast (Audioboom) and the BBC's Global News Podcast. Betrayal Weekly rose two places to seventh, The Bobby Bones Show and Smosh Reads Reddit Stories each fell one place to eighth and ninth, and Marketplace from American Public Media Group climbed one place to 10th.

iHeart Audience Network sells 81 of the 150 shows on the list, including four of the top 10, 15 of the top 25 and 33 of the top 50. Audioboom sells 33, three of them in the top 10. Cumulus accounts for seven titles and Lemonada Media for four; no other sales network has more than three.

Across the chart, 47 shows rose, 74 fell and 18 held their position. Six were Debuts, which Triton defines as shows new to the ranker within the last 13 months, and five were Returns, shows back after missing the previous period. Triton's release named three debuts: Burden of Guilt Season 3 at 88th (iHeart), Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski at 138th (Audioboom) and Your Daily Bible Verse at 149th (Salem). The table lists three more, all sold by iHeart: Legally Brunette at 127th, Laugh with Me at 144th and This Podcast Will Kill You at 150th.

Football arrives early

The returns lean heavily towards one sport. Josh Pate's College Football Show came back at 76th, 3 and Out with John Middlekauff at 81st, NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal at 100th and The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast at 102nd. FantasyPros - Fantasy Football Podcast rose 33 places to 28th, the second-largest gain on the chart, on 57 new episodes in four weeks. Purple Daily - A Minnesota Vikings Podcast climbed 12 places to 124th. The August window precedes the American football season, though the documents offer no commentary on the pattern. The largest single rise belonged to Front Page, up 42 places to 92nd. At the other end, Snap Judgment and The John Batchelor Show each fell 38 places, to 118th and 93rd respectively.

Episode counts and the back catalogue

The chart reports how many new episodes each show published during the period: 7,992 across all 150, with a median of 22. Volume is concentrated in news and radio-derived feeds. iHeartRadio 24/7 News: The Latest published 689 episodes in 28 days, roughly 25 a day. Bloomberg News Now published 602 and Headline News from The Associated Press 360. Hidden Killers debuted with 246.

At the opposite extreme, 26 shows released four episodes or fewer. Murder, Mystery & Makeup released none at all and still ranked 105th, down 15 places - a show carried entirely by its back catalogue during the period. Deep Cover ranked 103rd on two new episodes.

What the chart does not report is the number of downloads behind each position. It lists rank, change, sales network, sales representation and episode count. The gap between first and second place, or between 50th and 51st, is not published.

Crooked Media's route to second place

Pod Save America's second place is credited to Audioboom as sales network, while Triton's survey ranking, discussed below, lists the show's publisher as Crooked Media. The two are consistent. Crooked Media joined the Audioboom Creator Network during the first quarter of 2026, alongside RedHanded, which ranked 36th in August, and Hear Me Out. Audioboom reported average monthly distribution of 170 million downloads and video views for that quarter, a global figure including video that cannot be set against Triton's US-only download count. Multiplied across four weeks, Audioboom's August weekly average implies close to 60 million US downloads.

How a download is counted

According to Triton, Podcast Metrics is certified by the IAB Tech Lab as complying with version 2.2 of the IAB Podcast Measurement Technical Guidelines. Triton says the service "eliminates inconsistent measurement practices and self-reported data."

The mechanics sit in the definitions. A download is a unique file request. It includes complete file downloads, progressive downloads and partial downloads, subject to the version 2.2 filtering rules, which remove spiders and bots, requests from data centres and requests below a minimum of one minute of content - the podcast equivalent of invalid traffic filtration. Multiple requests from the same IP address, user agent, episode and date are collapsed into one.

Because the figures come from server logs filtered against published rules, they are census data rather than a sample. They count every qualifying file request from participating networks. They do not count people.

Average weekly downloads are calculated over four- or five-week reporting periods running Monday to Sunday and aligned closely with calendar months. The August period ran from Monday, August 3, to Sunday, August 30. According to Triton, the reporting calendar is designed to enhance tradability by minimising the effect of varying month lengths.

The standard is about to change

Version 2.2 is not the last word. IAB Tech Lab released version 2.3 of its Podcast Technical Measurement Guidelines for public comment on July 21, 2026, a 32-page draft that extends download and ad-delivery counting to video podcast episodes distributed through open RSS feeds and replaces the word listener with podcast consumer. Comments closed on August 19, 2026. The August ranker, published four weeks later, still cites version 2.2. Episodes streamed inside apps such as Netflix, Disney+ and Hulu do not travel through open feeds, and how the standard treats them remains unsettled.

A survey that ranks differently

Alongside the monthly download tables, Triton publishes a Top 200 Podcasts by Listeners/Viewers (Survey) ranking. The edition supplied with the August materials is headed "April 2026" on every page, while its footer gives the reporting period as April 1 to June 30. It covers the full second quarter, not the month in its heading.

The method is entirely different. According to Triton, 3,000 listeners are surveyed each quarter, drawn from US adults aged 18 and older who listen to podcasts monthly, with quotas set by age, gender, education, region and race, including unacculturated Hispanics, and balanced to the latest US Census Bureau data. Shows are ranked by the number of respondents who say they listened to or watched them in the prior quarter. All podcasts are eligible, whether or not their network opts into download measurement. Video viewing counts.

The top of that list looks nothing like the download chart. The Joe Rogan Experience ranks first, followed by Crime Junkie, The Daily, Call Her Daddy, This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von (up four places), Dateline NBC and SmartLess. Stuff You Should Know is eighth. The Tucker Carlson Show climbed 10 places to ninth, and Good Hang with Amy Poehler held 10th.

Only 28 shows appear on both lists

Of the 200 shows in the survey ranking, 28 also appear among the 150 in the August download chart. Stuff You Should Know is the only title in the top 10 of both. None of the survey's top seven appears in the download chart at all.

Where shows do appear on both, the gaps are wide. Behind the Bastards ranks 14th by downloads and 200th in the survey, having fallen 116 places there. My Favorite Murder is third by downloads and 56th in the survey. The Charlie Kirk Show is 19th by downloads and 162nd by survey, after an 84-place fall. The Dan Bongino Show is fourth and 50th. Pod Save America comes closest: second by downloads, 12th by survey.

Publisher counts diverge too. iHeart has 23 shows in the survey ranking, SiriusXM Podcasts 13 - including fourth and seventh place - and Audioboom nine. SiriusXM, absent from the download tables, is the second most represented publisher among the 200 shows people report listening to.

The survey list is also volatile. Twenty-six entries are labelled debuts and 30 returns, 56 in all. Of the rest, 68 rose, 67 fell and nine held steady. All The Smoke climbed 100 places to 91st and The Why Files: Operation Podcast 96 places to 60th; PBD Podcast fell 101 places to 169th. The document publishes no respondent counts or margins of error by show, so how many respondents separate 100th place from 200th is not disclosed.

Demos+ and its characteristics

The survey feeds Demos+, Triton's audience measurement product built with Signal Hill Insights. According to the methodology, Demos+ combines Podcast Metrics download data with a representative yearly survey of 12,000 monthly US podcast listeners aged 18 and older - consistent with four quarterly waves of 3,000.

Two figures for audience characteristics appear in the same notes. The Demos+ Top Indexing Programs by Audience Composition lists cover 42 characteristics, each with its own list of 50 podcasts, drawn from the 300 most downloaded shows that Triton measures, so only opted-in networks qualify. The Demos+ Category ranker, which ranks IAB podcast genres by monthly reach, uses 44 characteristics.

Why buyers read these tables

The stakes are commercial. United States podcast advertising revenue reached $2.9 billion in 2025, according to IAB and PwC, and the tables are one of the few public, third-party views of where that inventory sits.

Triton has been turning the survey layer into a buying tool. Nielsen integrated Triton's Demos+ podcast data into Nielsen Media Impact on April 27, 2026, and on September 10, 2026 Triton switched on Demos+ Demographic Targeting inside the Triton Ad Platform for publishers with audiences in the United States, Australia and the Netherlands. An earlier Triton finding frames the overlap problem: in its Q2 2025 ranker, the company said restricting spend to the top 50 podcasts limits possible reach to 49% of monthly podcast consumers. A chart that shares only 28 shows with a listener survey makes the same point from another angle.

Other data sets point the same way for iHeart. iHeartMedia reported second-quarter 2026 podcast revenue of $162.1 million, up 20.7%, and Podtrac's June 2026 ranker credited the iHeartAudienceNetwork sales arm with 267.6 million monthly downloads. Triton's August weekly average, multiplied across four weeks, comes to roughly 263.6 million. The months differ and so do the measurement companies, yet the two figures land in the same range. Podtrac, for its part, moved its YouTube podcast rankings to engaged views on September 3, 2026, a reminder that audience counting is still unsettled.

Measurer and vendor

Triton is not only the scorekeeper. Salem Media Group, fifth in the network table and seller of The Charlie Kirk Show and debut Your Daily Bible Verse, renewed and widened its Triton relationship on January 13, 2026. The Washington Post, 19th, handed Triton its podcast hosting, programmatic advertising and measurement on November 13, 2025. None of this is concealed, and the measurement carries IAB Tech Lab certification. The ranker itself does not flag which participants are also Triton customers.

For planners, then, the August release offers precise figures on a defined population: participating networks, US listeners, filtered file requests, four weeks. It does not describe the whole US podcast market, and it was never designed to.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Triton Digital, the audio technology and measurement company operating in more than 80 countries, published the rankings. The sales networks at the top were iHeart Audience Network, Audioboom and Cumulus Podcast Network; the most downloaded shows were Stuff You Should Know, Pod Save America and My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Media buyers, agencies and podcast publishers use the tables for planning and benchmarking.

What: The August 2026 U.S. Podcast Ranker, comprising a top-20 sales network table ranked by average weekly downloads and a top-150 podcast chart. iHeart recorded 65,896,118 average weekly downloads, Audioboom 14,940,675 and Cumulus 2,952,800. The podcast chart held six debuts and five returns. A separate quarterly survey ranking of 200 shows, based on 3,000 respondents, shares only 28 titles with the download chart.

When: Published on September 17, 2026, covering August 3 to August 30, 2026. The accompanying survey ranking covers April 1 to June 30, 2026, although its pages are headed "April 2026."

Where: The United States. Download rankings count listeners located in the US and include only networks that opt into Triton's Podcast Metrics measurement.

Why: US podcast advertising reached $2.9 billion in 2025, and third-party rankings are among the few public references for where that inventory is concentrated. The August tables show heavy concentration in a single network, the absence of several large sellers that previously appeared, and a wide gap between what download logs and listener surveys each identify as the biggest shows.