Half of the year’s top ten most popular podcasts on Spotify in the UK are exclusive to the platform, according to the latest annual figures from the streaming giant, compared to just two out of ten last year and supporting its recent acquisition strategy.
The yearly rankings, released as part of the company’s annual ‘Spotify Wrapped’ campaign, showed that Spotify-exclusive shows such as Call Her Daddy, JaackMaate’s Happy Hour and the recently-acquired Parenting Hell were heavily represented, with exclusives making up three of the top five.
Spotify’s most popular podcasts in the UK and Ireland for 2022:
1. The Joe Rogan Experience
2. The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
3. Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster
4. Call Her Daddy
5. The Fellas
6. Times news briefing
7. Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe’s Parenting Hell
8. Sh**ged Married Annoyed
9. JaackMaate’s Happy Hour
10. Saving Grace
The enormously popular Joe Rogan Experience led the charts, as has been the case since 2020 when the company acquired exclusive hosting rights to the show, followed by Steven Bartlett’s Diary Of A CEO and Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster. Rogan also topped Spotify’s 2022 charts for global podcast popularity, with Call Her Daddy, Anything Goes with Emma Chamberlain, Crime Junkie and The Daily in positions two through five.
“That speaks to some of our growth in the space,” said Spotify’s UK managing director Tom Connaughton, “but it's also great that there's room for everything. Originals and exclusives is one part of our strategy in the podcast space, top of the pyramid, you could say, but then obviously we distribute, and we're home to I think 4.7 million podcasts now, so there's a huge amount of podcasts that aren't original or exclusive for the audience as well.”
Along with providing users with data-led insights into their listening habits, Spotify Wrapped also gives creators and artists a window into how their content is being consumed. Podcasts can access their own ‘Wrapped’ summary through either their Spotify for Podcasters or Anchor dashboards, to see data points such as their most popular episode, poll engagement, demographic breakdowns and more.
