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It was only a matter of time before it happened but Joe Rogan and The Joe Rogan Experience has lost the #1 spot on the podcast charts. Maintaining the #1 spot forever is impossible but with Rogan’s guest, Adam Curry, being known as ‘The Podfather’ it seems like an odd time for such a massive dip in listeners and downloads to bump the JRE off the throne.
Rogan has, for pretty much the entirety of the existence of his podcast, occupied the #1 spot on the podcast charts. Even on a ‘down episode’ his Joe Rogan Experience is reaching nearly 50 million listeners. But somehow The MeidasTouch Podcast has usurped JRE according to the latest data.
This story picked up mainstream momentum after Meidas Touch posted a screenshot earlier this week on X (née Twitter) showing The MeidasTouch Podcast taking over the #1 spot ahead of Rogan:
NEWS: The MeidasTouch Podcast is officially the #1 podcast in the U.S. per the newly released Podscribe industry rankings, with 57.7 MILLION downloads and views per month pic.twitter.com/ghdEK90Co2
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) February 18, 2025
Following that screenshot, the story got picked up by Newsweek and other mainstream media outlets. The source of this data is Podscribe which tracks podcast downloads and streams across platforms.
For the most recent episode, somehow the MeidasTouch Podcast has snatched the #1 spot with a reported ~698K downloads and streams to the most recent episode (up 49%) but a whopping ~58.1 million downloads and streams in the past month, which would mark a 110% increase in DLs and streams for the show.
Meanwhile, The Joe Rogan Experience has experienced an uncharacteristic dip in the numbers. Rogan’s most recent episode received ~3.1 million downloads and streams and for the past month which is a dip of 41%. And over the past month, JRE has seen ~48.0 million downloads and streams which marks a 32% dip for Rogan.
© Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
That 32% dip would also tie Rogan with Candace Owens at 48 million DLs/streams for the past month so technically Rogan is tied for #2 with Candace Owens and not in sole possession of the #2 spot on the podcast rankings.
The rest of the top 10 is filled out by Steven Bartlett, Theo Von, Dan Bongino, Shawn Ryan, Ben Shapiro, and two podcasts from NPR. Among the top 10, Candace Owens has seen the biggest surge by far. Her monthly downloads and streams are up 150% to the Candace podcast and her most recent episode saw a surge of 72%.
For those unfamiliar with The MeidasTouch Podcast, it debuts every Monday and Thursday at 8pm on their YouTube channel and can be found everywhere else podcasts are downloaded like Apple Podcasts.
As for why Joe Rogan is slipping in the numbers, we can only guess. But a look at his recent guests suggests he’s failing to bring in huge names to move the needle over the past month or so. His recent guests in order include: Adam Curry, Mike Benz, John Reeves, Bridget Phetasy, Bret Weinstein, Rick Caruso, Dan Richards, Brian Simpson, Kurt Metzger, Lenval Logan & Jason Sands, Gad Saad, Jiri Prochazka, Dr. Mark Gordon, Warren Smith, and Lex Friedman (on January 22nd).
If many of those names are new to you that might be one signal of why the JRE numbers have been falling. Many podcast listeners scroll through Spotify or their Podcasts app and click on the title of whichever episode is the most eye-catching.