The Joe Rogan Experience has risen to number one on Apple’s podcast chart 2025. It jumped from number three to knock The Daily from The New York Times off the top spot. The full top 10 is:
- The Joe Rogan Experience
- The Daily
- The Mel Robbins Podcast
- Crime Junkie
- Dateline NBC
- SmartLess
- Call Her Daddy
- This American Life
- Huberman Lab
- The Ezra Klein Show
Joe Rogan, Mel Robbins, Alex Cooper, Ezra Klein. Personality-driven shows dominate that list. Similarly, Amy Poehler’s The Good Hang is the top new show, followed by Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce. (Jason Kelce’s wife, Taylor Swift’s soon-to-be sister-in-law.)
Personality Pushes Show to Top of Apple Podcast Chart 2025
Personality has always mattered in media. People like to feel some connection with news hosts, sports presenters, and radio DJs. The best ones make each audience member feel like they are being spoken to directly.
Whether it be newsletters, Instagram accounts, or podcasts, the current environment gives us the ability to form parasocial relationships on a whole other level. I wrote about it recently when Odd Lots host Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway were profiled in The New York Times. The Apple podcast chart 2025 underlines the point still further. It continues to give me hope in the face of mounting AI slop.
I think some of this can be seen in the recently announced tie-up between Spotify/The Ringer and Netflix too. The Bill Simmons Podcast, The Zach Lowe Show, The Rewatchables and more are going to be available, live, on the streamer. Announcing the agreement last week, Head of Podcasts at Spotify, Roman Wasenmüller said:
Together with Netflix, we’re expanding discovery, helping creators reach new audiences, and giving fans around the world the chance to experience the stories they love and uncover favorites they never expected. This offers more choice to creators and unlocks a completely new distribution opportunity.
Creators. People. Netflix wants to take advantage not just of fandoms for TV series, but fandoms for personalities. It cannot miss out on podcast popularity either.
We often talk about a fragmented media environment. The smallest unit of that is the individual.
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