this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2025
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Summary

Joe Rogan’s podcast has lost its long-held No. 1 ranking to the anti-Trump MeidasTouch Podcast, according to Podscribe data.

MeidasTouch, founded by the Meiselas brothers, saw a 101% increase in downloads, reaching 56 million, while The Joe Rogan Experience dropped 32% to 48.6 million.

The shift marks a rare moment where a left-leaning podcast overtakes typically dominant conservative voices.

It remains uncertain whether MeidasTouch will maintain its top position or if other anti-Trump podcasts will gain traction.

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[–] jeffw@lemmy.world 89 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is like the gen alpha version of “MSNBC beats out Fox as most viewed cable news network” headlines from 2017

[–] admin@lemmy.haley.io 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, but that also like never happened. Fox was always dominant.

[–] jeffw@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It definitely did?

Edit: apparently only for brief periods. If you consider his first term overall, Fox did dominate

[–] admin@lemmy.haley.io 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would fucking love that if it were true but it most certainly is not

https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/cable-news/

[–] breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I think it was just for like a week or two so it wouldn't necessarily show up in the yearly averages in those charts.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2017/07/25/msnbc-beat-fox-because-it-covered-the-news/

[–] admin@lemmy.haley.io 6 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the link. It does seem that there is a correlation between News media that leans toward the minority party getting a bump in eyeballs.

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I thought that was the point of the original comment, even.

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I thought that was the point of the original comment, even.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is your point that no one listens to podcasts? Because they do.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Why would he mean that? They appear to be the two most-watched cable news channels in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSNBC

In the fourth quarter of 2023, MSNBC was the second most-watched cable news network in the U.S., averaging 792,000 total day viewers, behind rival Fox News, which averaged 1.212 million viewers, and ahead of CNN, which averaged 502,000 viewers

Also, man, that surprises me. I thought that CNN was the largest. I was expecting Fox to be second-largest and MSNBC to be in the top five or something.

Maybe I'm just really out-of-date.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Just trying to figure out what they meant. Cable news is on the downswing so that was my guess

[–] tal@lemmy.today 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Oh, gotcha.

Yeah, actually, I mean, I know that it was losing viewers, but I'm also kind of surprised that the numbers are that low, now that I think about it, if that's "viewers" and not "households viewing".

It looks like 2010 was the beginning of the decline.

I think I last had cable service somewhere around 2004.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Yeah I think I had cable until about 2014. But for about 8-10 years before that my cable company literally gave me a discount for taking cable with my Internet. I basically never watched it but I'm not paying extra to lose that option.

[–] JWBananas@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

No surprise that it aligns with the proliferation of smartphones.

[–] RogueBanana@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago

Pretty sure they weren't implying anything behind it, just that it is similar to what happened back then but with Fox vs MSNBC. People shifting more into left once again, will have to wait and see if it will be major shift.

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[–] hOrni@lemmy.world 52 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm just depressed that Rogan's podcast was nr 1.

[–] bassomitron@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah, I legitimately don't understand it. I used to like his show back around 2016-2017sh time frame. Back then, he usually just had well known comedians on and shot the shit and it was funny. Hell, he'd even have cool scientists on discussing new research they were doing that he found interesting. He'd have the occasional fringe topic, e.g. UFOs, conspiracies, etc., but it was always done in an entertaining way and wasn't overly political.

I don't know what the hell happened, but around 2019/2020 he just went way to the far right and became a giant piece of shit. I haven't listened to his garbage show in years.

[–] hOrni@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

Money is what happened.

[–] MellowYellow13@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Same, freaking crazy. 2016-2017 it was awesome, he was actually progressive too, podcast was dope af, had all kinds of cool people on and conversations. Now it's just pathetic

[–] Siegfried@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Im not american, so i don't know the american lore. Was he "bought" or something? I also heard a few of his podcasts back in the day and it was pretty good.

[–] danc4498@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago

It’s been number one for over a decade. Think about what that means for our society.

[–] ramenshaman@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh hey I didn't know Meidas Touch had a podcast, I've been watching them on youtube for a while.

[–] datavoid@lemmy.ml 29 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I just checked out their YT channel - their thumbnails and titles are moderately aggravating. They are definitely using STUPID TACTICS in order to get MORE CLICKS.

[–] trslim@pawb.social 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah it infuriates me that that is the way to get clicks and farm veiws. A lot of the time, the content is actually good, but fuck, those stupid ass thumbnails and titles drive me insane.

[–] lennybird@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Unfortunately it works. We have to remember that their methodology is the reason why they have a massive audience in the first place. So we need to distinguish the marketing from the material.

Dems could learn a thing or two from Republicans on this front.

[–] jaybone@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would assume any popular “political” podcast on either side would do this.

[–] EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Any YouTube channel in general has to to some extent to simply get people to click. It's crazy how the psychology of it works, and people need to exploit it in order to just not disappear in the sea of YouTube videos.

I remember somebody talking once about why so many video thumbnails have the person's head superimposed on them, and it's because people are like 46% more likely to click on a video if it has a person's face on it than if it doesn't, even if it's the exact same video.

[–] Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

Funny cause I'm less likely too.

[–] datavoid@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I wish I were normal human sometimes. If I see someone's face on a thumbnail and there are several capitalized words in the title, I'm just not going to watch the video. Same goes for any vertical video.

[–] root_beer@midwest.social 3 points 1 year ago

They drove me away with those tactics before I ever saw they were on YouTube. No, Donald Trump was not EVISCERATED by a tweet that he -couldn’t- -didn’t- couldn’t read, kick rocks with that dumb Avenatti hashtag resist horseshit

[–] JesusTheCarpenter@feddit.uk 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Everyone is doing this. To be fair I don't blame them. I ignore the titles and watch for the content.

[–] datavoid@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

Not everyone does, especially with the capitalization. My favourite creators generally don't do either of these things.

I will concede that the most popular channels usually do this.. but in my mind they are aiming for children and the unintelligent with their tactics. Which in turn usually turns me off their content, unless it is amazing.

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[–] Aarrodri@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

Fuck him.and allnhis bs missinformstion. He exploited ignorance to be rich.. he could care less about truth.

[–] nieminen@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

Not necessarily "anti-trump", just "pro-democracy". Just happens that pro-democracy is inherently anti-trump

[–] MyOpinion@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago

Great to see it.

[–] dan@upvote.au 6 points 1 year ago

How do they count podcast downloads? Do my downloads using Audiobookshelf count?

[–] Art3sian@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I fucking loved listening to Joe for probably a decade, but I haven’t listened to a single ep since December.

That Trump, Vance, Gabbard, Musk run was a stunning indicator to me that he is now bought and sold, and his pods are scripted, which is a complete 180’ on why I liked him.

He used to be genuine and a centrist. Not anymore.

[–] MellowYellow13@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I am interested in why it took you that long, he has been heavily right wing long before Dec and even last year? I also used to listen to him when he was progressive, but he went full MAGA a while ago

[–] Art3sian@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I guess I didn’t see him as scripted or paid-for until that 4-guest GOP-a-thon, then it was blindingly obvious (and I’m not American, so I don’t even care about your politics).

I liked Joe because he never appeared to have any agenda, usually saw, or at least humoured both sides of an argument, and right or wrong (yes, he was plenty wrong), he was always at least genuine.

Now, he’s just a 3-hour long commercial.

[–] GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is it any good? MeidasTouch, that is

[–] ziggurat@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Their YouTube video titles are super clickbaity but the contents of the videos are very good, and not hyperbole. But the video titles, makes you want to have a service to crowd source video titles...

Oh there is one, called dearrow

[–] mipadaitu@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's how people click on them. I follow a science interview podcast and they hired a new producer that started changing the YouTube thumbnails to those generic dumb click bait ones.

The host says he hates it, but can't argue that whenever they make a thumbnail like that, the views are significantly higher.

In the end, you do what draws eyeballs. The content is what matters.

[–] DahGangalang@infosec.pub 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can't wait to hear his response to this on the next podcast.

[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 21 points 1 year ago

I can. I’ll listen to MeidasTouch’s take on his response instead.