Are These The Best Podcasts of 2024? Perhaps Not…

Dec 20th

What are the best podcasts of 2024? For the second year, we’ve asked Francesca Turauskis to analyse the listicles, the podcast apps and the awards winners to see what the most celebrated podcasts of 2024 can tell us about the podcast industry…

Last year, I started a new tradition – I tried to work out what the actual best podcasts of 2023 were, so that listeners could find them and podcasters could learn from them. However, whilst the podcasts that came out on top were good, the 2023 list ended up telling me much more about the podcast industry than the shows themselves.

I found out good things (such as that both narrative and conversation podcasts can be popular) but over all, there was a collective bias towards podcasts that were similar, male, white and occasionally problematic. Is that really the best podcasting has to offer?

So once again I’ve spent my December with my ear to the ground for the shows we’re being told to listen to. Will the 2024 results once again be serving the same stories? Or will we be pleasantly surprised with what is on the menu this year? Read on to find out!

Methodology

Whilst I tried to use similar method and sources to last year’s list, 2024 has seen some big changes in the podcast journalism landscape, so there are a few noticeable absences that might have affected the overall list:

• With Haymarket calling it a day on PodPod in February 2024 (after less than two years) we don’t have The Earworms articles from the PodPod website.
• Pod Bible also hasn’t run the Pod Bible Polls this year and they appear not to have written a ‘best podcasts of 2024’ list either.
• There were no Irish Podcast Awards this year.
• At the time of publication, there are currently no lists from Financial Times or The Guardian, which are often the most high-profile UK-based lists. Last year, their End of Year list came out on 15th and 16th December so I’d have expected to see them by now. (The journalists at The Guardian have been on strike recently so hopefully this just means the lists are delayed, but they have boosted their list from June, which I’ve currently used instead).

THE 17 ‘BEST’ PODCASTS OF 2024

I found 66 shows that were in at least two places, and here are the seventeen podcasts that were featured in at least four places.

17. 99% Invisible

Sharing stories about design that is everywhere in our lives, 99% Invisible is a long running show getting some love this year. It was actually two short series that were highlighted in different places – ‘The Power Broker’ and ‘Not Built For This’, which were recommended in Vulture, TIME, HuffPost and Tink’s Audio Delicacies. Listen here.

16. Cement City

Two journalists in the USA try to answer the question of what it’s like to live in a small town “with a Smog Museum and a mayor named Piglet… and not a whole lot else”. This new show is an Audacy Original, and loved by New York Times, Tink Audio Delicacies, Life Hacker and Samantha Hodder at Bingworthy. Listen here.

15. Shell Game

A ‘strange and immersive AI experiment’ where journalist Evan Ratliff explores what would happen if he combined a clone of his voice with an AI chatbot. Vulture, The Economist, Tink and Bingworthy felt this hit on something of current concern. Listen here.

14. The Wonder of Stevie

An exploration of how Stevie Wonder released five groundbreaking albums in the space of five years. As well as the investigation, there is a bonus episode with Stevie Wonder himself in conversation with the host, Wesley Morris, and Barack Obama. The Week, TIME, The Economist and The Irish Times loved this. Listen here.

13. The Lonely Island and Seth Meyes

A podcast about the SNL Digital Shorts, from the people that created them. ‘The Lonely Island’ are comedy-music sensations Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone (in case you, like me, are unfamiliar with them!). Vulture, TIME, HuffPost and the Audible Blog were fans of this. Listen here.

12. The Rest Is Entertainment

The first UK show on the list, The Rest Is Entertainment is a commentary show about the world of entertainment, and one of the Goalhanger ‘Rest Is…’ series of shows. It launched right at the end of 2023, and The Economist recommended this, but it is biggest on the apps: it was a ‘Best New Show’ on Spotify (in the UK), hand-picked by the Apple staff in the UK, and one of the Apple Podcasts top shows with listeners. Listen here.

11. Miss Me?

The first (and only) BBC show on the list, Miss Me? is a chat show between real-life childhood friends, Lily Allen and Miquita Oliver. Part of the BBC’s slate of celebrity shows launched this year, it’s been very popular with listeners, and is one of the ‘top new shows’ on Apple Podcast and Spotify, as well as a hand-curated choice by the Apple staff, and winning an award at the British Podcast Awards. Listen here.

10. The Competition

A behind-the-scenes look at America’s Distinguished Young Women program (formerly known as America’s Junior Miss), this show from Wondery gives an insight to a world that feels like a microcosm of America. I found I didn’t want to spend too much time in that world myself, but the show is fascinating to many and has been recommended by the Audible blog, Mashable, Tink’s Audio Delicacies, plus it was in The Guardian’s June list. Listen here.

9. Finally! A Show

The full title of this podcast is ‘Finally! A show about women that isn’t just a thinly veiled aspirational nightmare’, and it describes itself as “reality TV, just on radio”. Finally! lets listeners hear from real life women such as a water ski instructor, a soundbath practitioner or a death care provider. The title of the show feels to me like a subtweet on other podcasts on offer – but I would argue for the most realistic take on ‘real women’ we could listen to more indie podcasters, who already do niche so well. Listen here.

8. Broomgate

One of the seven podcasts we picked to keep you entertained in the Summer, Broomgate investigates a scandal in the close-knit sporting community of curling. Hosted by semi-professional curler, and comedian, John Cullen, it is a fairly wholesome take on investigative journalism, but also shows how money can corrupt even the humblest of sports. Vulture, The Economist, Esquire and the Audible blog also recommended this. Listen here.

7. Serial

Ten years after the first series took the world by storm, Serial is still clocking up recommendations for its most recent series about the controversial events at Guantánamo. Still showing their storytelling skills, Serial was recommended by Vulture, The Week and The Guardian’s June list, and it was one of the top series with listeners on Apple Podcasts this year. Listen here.

6. Noble

Journalist Shaun Raviv looks into a 2002 case where police discovered more than 300 bodies buried on one property in the small town of Noble, Georgia, USA. As well as the investigation itself, there is the question of the culture around death.Separating itself from previous pods in this list, Nobel has found five recommendations with Bingeworthy, Tink Audio Delicacies, The New Yorker, Vulture and it was also one of the top new shows in Apple podcasts. Listen here.

5. In The Dark

After this Peabody-winning podcast was cancelled in 2022, many are keen to show their support now it has found a new home at The New Yorker. This year the show turned its investigative journalism onto two subjects: series three looked into the death of a man’s family in Haditha, Iraq, and a four-part series called The Runaway Princesses highlighted the attempted escape of an Emirati princess, and the connections to the UK. Listen here.

4. Embedded

“NPR’s home for audio documentaries” shares in-depth reporting and investigation on topics that are often overlooked, or purposefully hidden. This year, three short-series made waves: ‘Supermajority’ was a look at the politics of one state in America, ‘Taking Cover’ was about a potential cover-up surrounding a deadly explosion during the Iraq War and ‘Tested’ digs into the history of controlling women’s hormone levels and bodies in sport. The first two are perhaps more interesting to those in the USA, but I found ‘Tested’ and the nasty origins of a very current topic to be an important topic of interest to many. Embedded counts recommendations in Vulture, The Week, New York Times, HuffPost and The New Yorker, plus a win at the Ambies. Listen here.

3. Sixteenth Minute (of Fame)

A weekly show from comedian Jamie Loftus, Sixteenth Minute (of Fame) looks at the internet’s main characters, the enduring memes, and the stories behind them. A show about pop culture is often going to be popular, but the structure of this show is creative – Jamie gives an engaging overview on the story behind the cultural phenomenon before we get an interview with someone connected to it. It is relevant, it’s quite nice to see a fun show so high on the list, and if you need examples of when video wouldn’t add to a podcast, just listen to Jamie’s wonderful explanations of the memes, videos, reels et al. Seven places agree – Lifehacker, HuffPost, Tink, Mashable, Audible Blog, Esquire and Vulture all recommend this. Listen here.

2. Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD

“The first person to use the term ‘organised crime’ didn’t mean it in the sense of Don Leone and the Mafia, he meant it in terms of the police department’. This quote in the first episode of Empire City is a succinct insight to the show, which takes listeners on a journey to uncover the roots of the NYPD. Chenjerai Kumanyika is the perfect person to tell the story, not only because he is a Peabody Award-winning host, but he’s also the son of Black rights leader Makaza Kumanyika. Empire City is personal, it is political and it is professional journalism in podcast form. Eight other places encourage you to listen to this one: Bingeworthy, Lifehacker, Tink Audio Delicacies, the Audible Blog, The New York Times. The New Yorker, Vulture and TIME. Listen now.

1. Hysterical

With an overall tally of fourteen recommendations, Hysterical is the runaway ‘podcast of 2024’ – according to everyone else. The show by Wondery and Pineapple Studios has some similarities to last year’s widely-revered The Retrievals, and it is an investigative series about a mysterious illness that spreads among a group of high school girls in the American town of LeRoy in 2015. I can see why it is being widely regarded. However…

As someone with a history of seizures, I found myself reacting with anger at the lack of sensitivity when it comes to archive footage used in the series. When talking about teenage girls having seizures on TV, host Dan Taberski laments about being denied footage of one seizure, before playing graphic audio from another. It is difficult to convey the lack of bodily control and stigma there is around having a seizure and to me, using that audio feels like another way a teenage girl has lost control of her body for ‘good audio’.

Hysterical has been widely regarded for its sensitive reporting, and there are great nuances to the way it explores the sexism behind ‘hysteria’. For me, it does not balance the lack of respect in the audio used, and it saddens me that this was not thought about by everyone on the show, fourteen podcast professionals, and those picking Apple’s Podcast of the Year. Listen here.

And One Universally Derided Podcast

The Spotify Wrapped Podcast

Whilst it is difficult to agree on the best shows, there was one podcast released this year that has been pretty much universally derided by listeners and journalists. Spotify Wrapped offered all users a personalised AI Podcast to comment on their music listening. It was meant to be a fun and futuristic edition to the Spotify Wrapped experience. However, there was an uncanniness to the whole thing, with the AI failing to take into account context and making “distasteful” remarks. A real miss of the mark.

WHAT DOES THIS SELECTION OF PODCASTS TELL US?

We’re Being Told About More Podcasts

On my tally sheet, there were nearly 300 podcasts recommended at least once, which is about 100 more than last year (with a similar number of sources). There were also sixteen more shows that were mentioned in at least two places, and there were very few shows that featured overly repetitively. It all suggests that the podcast recommenders are branching away from the limited amount of shows the apps and press releases are suggesting to them.

There Is A Wider Range Of Podcasts In 2024

Even more refreshing to see is the wider range of stories and demographics on display in this list. Last year there was a noticeable lack of people of colour and this year we have a much more balanced representation across a range of shows from ‘Entertainment’ to in-depth investigations on systemic racism. LGBTQIA+ stories just missed out though – Queer The Music and Blood On The Dance Floor were two of the shows on the longlist.

UK Podcasts Have Lost Out This Year

Whilst last year there was a pretty even split between UK shows and shows from the USA, this year we have just two UK shows. It’s difficult to say why for sure, but the fact that we’ve lost the podcast coverage from PodPod, the Pod Bible Polls and both The Guardian and The Financial Times seem to have delayed their list might have something to do with this.

If the newspaper lists are released before the end of the year, I’ll check to see if they can boost any UK shows. But I can’t help but think it’s getting increasingly difficult for UK podcasts to get write-ups (and therefore to filter into the consciousness of those writing in the USA).

Award Wins Don’t Mean Wide Recognition

Of the top fourteen shows, only two of them have won an award over the past year – Miss Me? which won a British Podcast Award for Best Entertainment show, and Embedded won an Ambie for the ‘Taking Cover’ series. This could be because this year’s shows missed the award deadlines and we’ll see them get awards next year, but it might also mean that award-winning shows are not always the most-liked shows.

When You Launch Is Important

A lot of the short series that have done well in this list were released around a similar timeframe – not too long ago to be forgotten but not too late to miss the write-ups. Who Replaced Avril Lavigne? and The Good Whale both nearly made it into this list (three recommendations each). Who Replaced Avril Lavigne? ended in April, but it was one of The Guardian’s top shows mid-year. The Good Whale has received universal praise but it has only just finished on general release (those with a New York Times subscription could listen to the whole series at once). Perhaps if they came out at a different time they would have been list worthy.

Are We Over Politics Podcasts?

Despite the fact that 2024 saw podcasts play a large part in politics, with big download numbers and notable influence on political campaigns themselves, there is not one ‘current affairs’ that made the list. Perhaps we are just a bit tired now we’re getting to the end of democracy’s biggest year.

It Is Harder For Indie Pods To Break Through

Last year we had a couple of independent shows sneak onto the list (and at high rankings too.) This year, there is not one indie podcast that has been widely recognised. Every show comes from a big production house, a celebrity, or both.

We Need To Talk About The Ethics of Audio Sources

Hysterical is an example of how my lived experience gives me an insight to the unsuitability of the audio used and I believe that the way ‘interesting audio’ is sourced is a topic we need to talk about more. Whilst I want to be able to trust that Producers will go through the processes of getting permissions for audio used, we can also assume that not everyone will. I think because so much is in the ‘public domain’ now, we’ve forgotten that doesn’t mean they are ‘creative commons’. We need to be using audio in an ethical and credited way.

List Sources:

Thank-you for reading this year’s analysis. If you are interested in reading the full lists, they are:

LifeHacker, Mashable, The Week, Time, Tink Media Audio Delicacies, Audible Blog, GQ Magazine, New Yorker, NY Times, Vulture, Spotify App (UK), Bingey List, The Guardian (June list), The Irish Times

Plus these awards: International Women’s Podcast Awards, Ambies, British Podcast Awards, Ambies, Webbys, Australian Podcast Awards

Charts: The Edison Top 25 UK podcasts, Apple Podcasts 2024 charts, Spotify 2024 charts

And there are few lists yet to be released at the time of writing: The Great Pods ‘Master List of 2024’ (released on 30th last year), Podcast Review (released on 22nd last year), The Guardian and FT.