Conservative podcasters have enjoyed a surge in popularity in the United States in recent months, pushing them into an evolving media market that has been dominated by liberal political voices.
The right-wing figures — Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Shawn Ryan and Candace Owens — are among the 25 most-listened-to podcasts on Spotify, all reaching that mark within the last year.
It marks a break with the tradition in which major shows like “Pod Save America” often took place on the other side of the political aisle.
US President-elect Donald Trump’s election campaign helped elevate right-wing shows, with the 78-year-old Republican appearing as a guest on some. But the liberals have not had that much success.
Chris Lanuti, president of production and consulting firm The Broadcast Basement, said, “I think the reason you’re seeing more conservatives is because there’s been a flood of the liberal side, and so launching a podcast with a liberal viewpoint is very popular. It has been difficult.”
For Christine Johnson, a marketing professor at Rowan University in New Jersey, “One of the reasons these shows are more popular is because they are popular on television.”
Tucker Carlson was, as of April 2023, one of America’s most-watched TV hosts – averaging three million viewers per night on Fox News, where Megyn Kelly was also a presenter.
“Podcasting is more mainstream, so it’s easier to move to another platform to continue listening to the people you really love listening to,” Johnson said.
excessive content
The democratization of podcasts reflects the growth of the audience beyond the young, college-educated city dwellers who historically made up the bulk of listeners.
According to an April study from Edison Research, nearly 98 million Americans now listen to podcasts at least once a week — a 58 percent increase from five years ago.
Martin Spinelli, professor of podcasting at the University of Sussex – reportedly the UK’s first – said podcasting as a medium has “matured”.
“People have figured out how to use it effectively for messaging and how to use it effectively to make money, and now we’re in that moment,” Spinelli said.
He said leftist podcasts are more in your mind than conservative shows like political pundit Ben Shapiro’s, which he cites as a reason for the right’s success.
The fine-tuning of algorithms – the complex rules that determine what content users see in their feeds – has also allowed podcasts to reach the right audience.
The challenge and risk for conservative voices now is how to position themselves in a country already divided by politics and where much of the media is divided along partisan lines.
Lanuti of The Broadcast Basement said the competition could lead to more extreme content on both sides of the aisle.
“When it comes to political podcasts, one of the reasons you get extremists, whether they’re on the left or the right, is because the market is saturated and they’re trying to differentiate themselves so they can keep getting ears,” He said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
