The world of podcasts is huge and growing. As of June 2024, approximately 2.7 million podcasts were available on Apple Podcasts alone, reflecting a 13.5% increase from September 2021. Globally, there are over 5 million podcasts with more than 75 million episodes. In the United States, the most popular genres of the many topics of podcasts are the news (21%), true crime (18%), sports (17%), health and fitness (17%), and religion and faith (16%).
The most popular podcasts, often with high-profile guests, are:
- The Joe Rogan Experience, featuring long conversations on topics such as comedy, politics, science, and culture averaging around 11 million listeners per episode
- Call Her Daddy, which discusses themes related to relationships, sexuality, and personal anecdotes, with around 10 million listeners per episode
- Crime Junkie, focused on true crime stories, with around 5.9 million listeners per episode.
- The Daily, produced by The New York Times, which provides an in-depth analysis of current news events and issues
- Stuff You Should Know, which explains a wide array of topics, from science and history to pop culture and mysteries.
While podcasts traditionally have been audio-only, like radio shows, the number of video podcasts is increasing rapidly. According to a recent study, 36% of weekly podcast consumers prefer audio-only podcasts, while 33% actively watch video podcasts. Another 31% listen to podcasts with the video playing in the background or minimized.
Now with more video podcasts being produced, YouTube has become a leading platform for podcasts, especially among younger audiences. As of 2024, 31% of weekly U.S. podcast listeners use YouTube, surpassing Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
And now there’s a new podcast series – Changemakers Podcasts which features news and trends in business, starting with unique and unusual business that are little known. The podcasts are a spin-off of a series of books, films, and games on social issues and politics which I published and produced for American Leadership Books, a leading publisher of books on criminal justice, society, and politics.
Many of these books have been turned into documentary films by Changemakers Productions and Dark Genie.
To launch the series, the first podcast features an interview with Alex Zinzopoulos, one of the producers of the films on scams Conned: A True Story and Con Artists Unveiled, and a film about AI’s effects on individuals, AI Evolution. You can hear the film interview on Spreaker
Then, after I began working with a team of virtual assistants to promote the books by American Leadership Books, the films on scams based on The Big Con, about a books-to-film scam, and I Was Scammed, about several dozen scams to avoid, the next podcast featured the VA team leader and owner of a virtual assistants company, EzyAgents, Sherry Murtaza.
Now Changemakers Podcasts will be featuring one or two interviews a week with little known types of business.
Are you interested in starting a podcast, besides listening to one of the millions out there? As in the independent book publishing world with over 2 million books a year, the number of listeners like the number of readers for most blogs is small. For instance, researchers have found that a podcast with 30 downloads per episode in the first week is performing better than half of all podcasts, particularly those in specialized niches, have modest listener numbers, often comparable to the readership of self-published books.
But as I found, there are a number of podcast hosting platforms that are essential for storing and distributing podcast episodes to various directories and listeners. I chose Spreaker, since I used to do a show on BlogTalkRadio for two years, and now that it is closing in January 2025, it referred me to Speaker.
This , which hosts the program after I record and upload the audio for the interview, which I’m doing on Zoom, though I could use any recording format. These other major platforms include:
Acast with over 88,000 podcasts and more than 430 million listeners monthly.
Libsyn with more than 75,000 podcasts with over 7 million active episodes.
Buzzsprout with 100,000 podcasters, offering user-friendly features suitable for beginners.
Some others are Podbean, Transistor, Blubrry: Captivate: Simplecast, and Anchor.
Now you can listen to the new podcast series and learn about some new unique businesses and trends on Changemakers Podcasts. The major sponsors of these podcasts are American Leadership Books and ALB Games. The company’s latest games include Scamalot, based on the book The Big Con about dozens of victims swindled by a book-to-film scam, and on the book I Was Scammed, featuring victims of several dozen scams and how to avoid them.
The books were turned into the films Conned: A True Story and Con Artists Unveiled. Another game is Life Behind Bars, inspired by the books Women with Partners in Prison and Women in Prison, which led to the film Love Behind Bars. All the books, films, and games, which deal with current social issues and trends, are available on Amazon and other platforms.
For more information on the podcasts, books, films, and games, and to set up interviews, email or call:
Karen Andrews
Executive Assistant
Changemakers Podcasts
Changemakers Publishing and Writing
San Ramon, CA 94583
(925) 804-6333
