Seems out of date.

Media Matters compiled a list of 418 popular online shows — podcasts, streams, and other long-form audio and video content regularly posted online — that were active during 2024

I'll spot you this. How many of these followers are dated? How many are bot accounts used to game the promotion algorithms? We can only speculate. It does seem crazy to see Russell Brand competing with Jordan Peterson at the high end, when neither of these two clowns seem to have any real popular following outside of the Podcast set. Peterson hasn't even been producing episodes reliably since COVID. He's had to take repeated extended breaks due to his declining health. These have to be stale numbers.

On the flip side, if you look at the numbers by Patreon Subscriber Count, a bunch of these guys fall off the lists and a bunch of more normal groups rise to the top. Where's "Dungeons and Daddies" or "This American Life" or "True Crime Obsessed"?

Hell, where's the de facto reining podcast champion "Chapo Trap House"?

Numbers seem a bit cooked.