Nearly a third of all Americans listen to or watch podcasts every week — but far more often than not, it's men's voices that they're hearing. According to a new study from researchers at the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, podcast hosts skew heavily male, and so do their guests.
The researchers dug into data from over 600 of the most popular podcasts of 2024, using data from Spotify. They found that within the top 100, nearly two-thirds were hosted by men — and nearly three-quarters of all guests were male, too. Women are particularly underrepresented in the business, tech, sports, fitness, and comedy genres.
The podcast genres that were most frequently hosted by women include true crime, arts, society and culture (which the researchers put into one category), news and education.
The researchers also found that over 77% of the top 100 hosts were white — leaving a lot of communities out of the conversation.
The Annenberg research points out that within the Top 100 podcasts from 2024, only 11 female hosts were from racially underrepresented backgrounds. Several of them are current or former NPR anchors.
The researchers say the gender and racial inequities they've identified in the podcasting arena are far greater than in similar research they've done in the movie, TV and music industries. According to their most recent data, only 22.3% of podcast hosts come from underrepresented groups; by contrast, more than 44% of both regular actors on TV series and artists working in popular music are people other than white men, while 25.2% of actors leading or co-leading films are from underrepresented groups.
"Podcasting's power lies in its potential as a democratized medium, where anyone with an idea and a microphone can find an audience," said Stacy L. Smith, the team's lead author and founder of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, in a press release. " As the format matures, that accessibility can help challenge the old patterns of entertainment and pave the way for a more inclusive audio landscape."
This is the first time that the Annenberg team has delved into podcasting.
Jennifer Vanasco edited this story.
Copyright 2025 NPR
