{"id":79575,"date":"2026-09-08T12:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T11:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/?p=79575"},"modified":"2026-09-08T12:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T11:56:12","slug":"edison-research-at-ssrs-top-25-podcasts-in-the-uk-q2-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/edison-research-at-ssrs-top-25-podcasts-in-the-uk-q2-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Edison Research at SSRS Top 25 Podcasts in the UK: Q2 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We’ve just had the Q2 2026 Top 25 Podcasts<\/a> in the UK rankings from Edison Research at SRSS. This is their usual quarterly survey of podcast listening in the UK which is based on a recall survey of at least 2,000 weekly podcast consumers in the UK. They collect data regardless of platform, and the methodology is similar to that used for their US surveys. Here’s what Q2 2026 looks like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The top four podcasts are unchanged in position, with The Rest Is Football<\/em> moving up one place in a quarter in which it got massive exposure during the World Cup by being picked up by Netflix. That’s something that is now continuing through this year’s football season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The News Agents<\/em> pips Newscast<\/em> this time around, but most of the titles in this list have been in the list before.

The two new entries are Dish<\/em> with Angela Hartnett and Nick Grimshaw in at number 19, and The Martin Lewis Podcast<\/em> getting in at number 25.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also a re-entry for The Louis Theroux Podcast<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That means that the ZOE Science & Nutrition <\/em>podcast which was a new entry last time around, drops out of the Top 25 this time. Also dropping out is Desert Island Discs<\/em> which was off-air with new episodes for some of this period. Americast<\/em> also drops out of the Top 25.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Other things to note. Uncanny<\/em> jumped back into the top 10 in a quarter when it published new episodes. While the majority of these podcast titles are “always-on”, some like Uncanny<\/em> only run for a certain number of weeks a year, and that can impact on their place on the chart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rest is Entertainment<\/em> also had a big jump this quarter, and that’s a title that is<\/em> always-on. Last quarter’s spot feels like a bit of an aberration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would be interested to see what the lead is of The Joe Rogan Experience<\/em> over The Diary of a CEO<\/em>. It feels that a change at the top must be coming soon, although as you can see, Rogan has been in the top spot for the entire history of this chart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it’s worth noting that there are likely to be differences in different age categories, but that information isn’t made available in the overall data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, here is my usual animated chart of the podcasts in the Top 25 over time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This animation still suggests that there are three buckets of podcasts in the Top 25:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • The Big 4-5<\/em> at the top that are nearly always there.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The Mid Table Set<\/em> which move around a bit but are mostly ever-present in the Top 25<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The Ups and Downs<\/em> which probably jump around from #35 to #15. These are the titles that can drop out of the chart and later return. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    The interesting<\/em> titles would be the fast movers further beyond the Top 25. Have Dish<\/em> and The Martin Lewis Podcast<\/em> been regularly finding themselves in places 25-50? Have they grown steadily over time so that a Top 25 appearance was always likely?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Finally, I thought it might be worth reiterating the various methodologies for measuring podcast listening, and the strengths and weaknesses of each. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This study is based on a survey<\/em> \u2014 in this instance of 2,000 weekly podcast listeners. The benefits of this are that every title is included, regardless of whether it even wanted<\/em> to be included, and all platforms are included if the question respondents are asks includes all platforms. The obvious one here is YouTube which for most is a visual platform. YouTube consumption is included a here. A survey doesn’t rely on reported numbers from any provider, and it doesn’t have issues regarding, say, a listen on Spotify vs a view on YouTube. That’s kind of left to the respondent and the precise wording of the question that they are asked. The downsides are that podcasting has a very long tail of titles, and a survey of 2,000 people will only provide reliable data on bigger titles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The other key way get a list is via direct measurement <\/em>\u2014 you collate data from titles or platforms, and you have accurate listening information on every title from the biggest to the very smallest. But this requires titles to opt-in to your measurement, and historically companies have not all chosen to do that. Everyone needs to adhere to the same measurement standards, such the IAB’s. But even then, you might get differences between how different producers or hosting companies on their behalf, count that information. And with the advent of video platforms like YouTube, they may well be using different measurements again. Recently YouTube has moved to a different way to count public “Views” – the number you see on a video’s YouTube page. There is a separate “Engaged View” figure which doesn’t count people who only watch a single frame of a video as the main View now does. But it’s still different to what the IAB might determine a podcast listener is. Now you need to merge listening on Spotify and Apple Podcasts with listening on YouTube and come up with an overall figure that represents a true reflection of listenership.

    Beyond this, there are other ways to do it, including adding elements of both surveying and measurement together. Platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts know a lot about their own consumption too. But nobody really has the full picture, and even a podcast producer is basically reliant on what platforms share with them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This stuff isn’t easy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    All data is from Edison Podcast Metrics: Edison Podcast Metrics is unique in that it is not dependent on podcast download data and does not require podcast networks to opt into its service. At least 2,000 weekly podcast consumers in the UK are surveyed each quarter, and listening behaviour is collected regardless of listening platform. The same methodology is being employed in the UK as is used in the U.S.\u202f\u202f<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    We’ve just had the Q2 2026 Top 25 Podcasts in the UK rankings from Edison Research at SRSS. This is their usual quarterly survey of podcast listening in the UK which is based on a recall survey of at least 2,000 weekly podcast consumers in the UK. They collect data regardless of platform, and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":79586,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,446],"tags":[1064,217],"class_list":["post-79575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-audio","category-podcasts","tag-edison","tag-podcasts"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79575"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79587,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79575\/revisions\/79587"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}