How To Find the Most Popular Podcasts

This is an interesting time of year for podcasts. This month, rather than posting new shows, many of them have been introducing listeners to other podcasts.
Many of them announced in January that they are “hard at work on new shows for 2022, but in the meantime, we think you’ll enjoy this podcast made by” another production team.
Part of the reason seems to be that podcasts these days are much more heavily produced than back in the Wild West days, when a show was just two people sitting by a microphone and discussing a topic of very narrow interest.
Contemporary podcasts increasingly follow the excellent National Public Radio model of doing a lot of research, a lot of interviews and then writing/editing it all into an audio-only documentary.
Sometimes a topic is discussed at length in a single episode; sometimes there is a kind of mini series in which a topic (or person) is the subject of several episodes in a row.
Even conversational podcasts these days perform at a much higher level, where you can have knowledgeable and well-known people taking a couple hours out of their day to have a long conversation about a topic of interest.
That can be actor Rob Lowe (unexpectedly super smart, funny and interesting and a great interviewer) talking to other entertainers, and in the process creating an oral history of 20th century film and theater (“Literally! With Rob Lowe”).
It can be former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara having a detailed conversation with Alabama prosecutor Joyce Vance about the most compelling national legal issues of the week (“Cafe Insider”).
Or it can be Pres. Barack Obama’s chief political strategist, David Axelrod, being timely, lively, funny and insightful with Republican political consultant Mike Murphy as they dissect elections, Donald Trump and more (“Hacks on Tap”).
Finding the top shows
I am a podcast junkie and I apologize to everyone to whom I say, “I just heard on a podcast that (fill in the blank).” It’s a bad habit.
But the fact remains that I listen to a lot of podcasts and therefore am always on the lookout for new ones.
If you are too, I’ve just discovered a gold mine of podcast information. There is a website called Chartable (www.chartable.com) that tells you the most popular podcasts in the world on every subject in order of popularity.
It is actually a website for podcast industry professionals but it’s easily used by the non-pro who just wants to see what’s interesting. You can search worldwide favorites or you can specify a particular nation. You can search “all podcasts” or you can look for the most popular shows (and episodes) in specific genres.
The two podcast providers that they chart are Spotify and Apple.
The top three global podcasts, according to Chartable, are (in order from one to three) Crime Junkie, Dateline NBC and Stuff You Should Know.
The top three podcasts in the U.S. on the Apple list are (in order from one to three) Crime Junkie, Welcome to Our Show and Smartless (with actors Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett).
The top three in the U.S. from Spotify are The Joe Rogan Experience (as we know from the recent Neil Young protest), Call Her Daddy and Whistleblowers.
A few of
my favorites
In case you’re wondering, Crime Junkie is number seven among Spotify listeners. And while I’m not specifically a true crime podcast fan, apparently this is a huge global podcast trend.
Since we’re sharing, here are just a (very) few of my favorites, in no particular order. Feel free to email me with your own list of favorites and we can post them online.
• Anything by, with or about Malcolm Gladwell, especially his own shows: Revisionist History; and Broken Record with buddha-like music producer Rick Rubin.
• Hit Parade with music chart analyst Chris Molanphy
• Anything with behavioral economist Tim Harford
• Bloomberg Law, short reports on top legal issues (including information about cases involving, for example, Elizabeth Holmes, Ghislaine Maxwell and Britney Spears)
• Up Against the Mob with prosecutor Elie Honig
•Barron’s Streetwise Podcast with Jack Hough
• The Great James Bond Car Robbery, eight episodes narrated by the sultry and amusing Elizabeth Hurley, about the theft of the iconic James Bond Aston Martin from an airplane hangar in Florida.
Built in 1820, 1168 Bangall Amenia Road sold for $875,000 on July 31 with the transfer recorded in August. It has a Millbrook post office and is located in the Webutuck school district.
STANFORD — The Town of Stanford with nine transfers in two months reached a median price in August of $573,000 for single family homes, still below Stanford’s all-time median high in August 2024 of $640,000.
At the beginning of October there is a large inventory of single-family homes listed for sale with only six of the 18 homes listed for below the median price of $573,000 and seven above $1 million.
July transfers
79 Ernest Road — 4 bedroom/2.5 bath home on 6.87 acres in 2 parcels sold to Matthew C. Marinetti for $1,225,000.
29 Drake Road — 3 bedroom/3.5 bath home on 2 acres sold to Harper Montgomery for $850,000.
6042 Route 82 — 4 bedroom/2 bath home on 1.09 acres sold to Spencer Thompson for $795,000.
125 Tick Tock Way — 3 bedroom/2.5 bath ranch on 1.9 acres sold to Fleur Touchard for $475,000.
August transfers
102 Prospect Hill Road — 3 bedroom/2 bath home on 6.35 acres sold to Karl Creighton Pfister for $565,000.
252 Ernest Road — 2 bedroom/1 bath cottage on .85 acres sold to Meg Bumie for $465,000.
1196 Bangall Amenia Road — 4 bedroom/2.5 bath home on 2.16 acres sold to Roderick Alleyne for $875,000.
Hunns Lake Road (#759929) — 59.1 acres of residential land sold to Argos Farm LLC for $3,325,000.
* Town of Stanford recorded real estate transfers from July 1 to August 31 provided by Dutchess County Real Property Office monthly transfer reports. Details on each property from Dutchess Parcel Access - properties with an # indicate location on Dutchess Parcel Access. Market data from One Key MLS and Infosparks .Compiled by Christine Bates, Real Estate Advisor with William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty, Licensed in Connecticut and New York.
Hunt club members and friends gathered near Pugsley Hill at the historic Wethersfield Estate and Gardens in Amenia for the opening meet of the 2025-2026 Millbrook Hunt Club season on Saturday, Oct. 4. Foxhunters took off from Wethersfield’s hilltop gardens just after 8 a.m. for a hunting jaunt around Amenia’s countryside.
Joining in the fun at the dedication of the new pollinator pathway garden at The Millbrook Library on Saturday, Oct. 4, local expert gardener Maryanne Snow Pitts provides information about a planting to Lorraine Mirabella of Poughkeepsie.
MILLBROOK — Participating in a patchwork of libraries that have planted pollinator pathway gardens to attract insects and birds to their native plantings was one of the accomplishments being celebrated at the dedication of a new pollinator garden at the Millbrook Library on Saturday, Oct. 4.
“A lot of work went into it,” said Emma Sweeney, past President of the Millbrook Garden Club, who started the local library’s initiative two years ago.
The Pollinator Pathway program is a national effort to plant native plants that native insects depend upon for sustenance and preferred plants for their own seasonal reproduction.
Jana Hogan of Ridgefield, Connecticut, Executive Director of the Pollinator Pathway program, was on hand to present a plaque to the library for its successful participation.
“A garden is not just a garden,” said garden designer Andy Durbridge of Wassaic, designer of the library’s garden. “It may serve as a model for other gardens along the line.”
Speaking to the 50 visitors at the dedication, Durbridge said that the library’s garden has a mission, that it is a working garden, planned to serve insects and birds over their seasons. The earliest plants support pollinators, while the full range of plants continues to serve the needs of those they attract, offering habitat, shelter and food.
A pollinator garden is akin to a prairie, rather than a formalized European garden, Durbridge noted.
The garden project was supported by the library’s Friends group using funds raised during the Holiday Silent Auction and ongoing book sale. A grant from the Millbrook Garden Club also provided support.
Amenia Town Hall on Route 22.
AMENIA — After gathering comments from the Planning Board and the Zoning Board of Appeals, as it considers adding alternate members to those boards, the Town Board discussed possible changes to local laws governing those boards at its meeting on Friday, Oct. 3. The meeting date, usually on a Thursday, had been changed to accommodate a holiday.
In recent weeks Town Board attorney Ian Lindars has been compiling comments from the affected boards along with comments from the Town Board. The new laws may bring the appointment of two alternate members to each board. Alternate members are likely to be required to attend all meetings and be prepared to be seated if needed and be familiar with the applications being discussed. They would also need to take training required of all board members.
Lindars will prepare a draft of the new local laws to be reviewed by the Town Board and the affected boards.
As the Town Board begins work on the town’s annual budget negotiation process and anticipating an increase in some budget lines to accommodate major projects, the board unanimously approved three resolutions. The first will override the tax levy limit imposed on municipalities by the state of New York, a limit generally tied to the rate of inflation.
A public hearing on the proposal to override the levy limit was set for Thursday, November 6, beginning at 7 p.m. at the Town Hall.