Most Top-Ranked Podcasts Bring On Guests

By Galen Stocking and Meltem Odabaş for Pew Research Center

Podcasts are a unique, audio-first source of news and entertainment that has steadily drawn more listeners since 2013, with about half of Americans saying they have listened to a podcast in the past year.

Podcasts are often based around the perspective of the host or hosts, but many podcasts bring on guests to provide additional viewpoints. A new study of 434 top-ranked podcasts shows just how common this practice is: 76% of top-ranked podcasts brought on at least one guest in 2022. About one-in-five (22%) featured guests regularly, and 5% of the shows had guests in almost every episode (90% or more of the time).

Among the key findings in this report:

• Thousands of individuals appear on top-ranked podcasts. More than 7,000 people appeared on these podcasts in 2022. Because some individuals went on podcasts more than once, these 7,000 individuals made almost 11,000 guest appearances. All told, a guest appeared in about one-third of the approximately 24,000 episodes these podcasts released in 2022.
• Podcasts on some topics are more likely to have guests, but true crime is a largely guest-free zone. Sports, entertainment, politics and self-help podcasts are more likely to feature guests than other topics, with at least three-quarters of these podcasts hosting at least one guest in 2022. And over half of entertainment podcasts regularly had guests. By contrast, true crime is the most common genre among top-ranked podcasts. But about four-in-ten top-ranked true crime podcasts had no guests in 2022, and just 4% of true crime podcasts featured guests regularly.
• Most guests make only one guest appearance and stick to a single show: 78% of all guests on these top-ranked podcasts appeared just one time in 2022. And just 12% of guests appeared on multiple podcasts during the year.

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