Most top-rated podcasts bring on guests, states new report from Pew Research Center

Pew Research Center has a new report analyzing guests featured on top-ranked podcasts. The study finds that most top-ranked podcasts in 2022 (76%) brought on at least one guest, with over 7,000 people appearing on these shows. In addition:

• Podcasts about certain topics tend to have guests more often, including top-ranked sports (100%), entertainment (85%) and politics (78%) shows. In addition, 89% of news-focused podcasts (across topics) brought on at least one guest in 2022.
• Most podcasts aren’t bringing the same guests on over and over. More than 99% of all guests only appeared once on any top podcast in 2022. In addition, about half (49%) of top podcasts brought on at least one guest more than once, and 23% hosted more than five different people more than once.
• The most common guests represent a range of professional backgrounds, including entertainment figures, scientists, journalists and political commentators. The guests who appeared on the highest number of episodes tended to be sports journalists or commentators.

These findings are based on an analysis of roughly 24,000 episodes published by 434 top-ranked podcasts in 2022. All told, 7,212 guests were identified in this analysis, reports Pew.

More here.