50 Fun Facts About Podcast

Journalist Ben Hammersley coined the word 'podcast' in February 2004 while writing for which newspaper?

It is a portmanteau of iPod and broadcast, and Hammersley tossed it off almost as an aside among other suggested names.

The word 'podcast' is a blend of 'broadcast' and the name of which device?

Ironically most podcast listening now happens on phones, and Apple discontinued the iPod in 2022.

Which former MTV VJ, nicknamed the 'Podfather', launched the early show Daily Source Code in 2004?

He went on to co-host No Agenda with John C. Dvorak from 2007 and launched the open Podcast Index in 2020.

Which software developer implemented attaching audio files to RSS feeds, the technical basis of podcasting?

Winer's RSS 'enclosures' let a feed carry an MP3, and Adam Curry built the first popular podcatcher on top of them.

Apple mainstreamed the medium in June 2005 by building podcast support into which of its programs?

It arrived in iTunes 4.9; suddenly no separate download app was needed, and podcast directories exploded overnight.

Which comedy podcast with Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington earned a Guinness record as most downloaded in 2006?

Launched through the Guardian in December 2005, it passed 300 million downloads by 2011 and became an HBO cartoon.

Who hosts Serial, the 2014 true-crime podcast spun off from This American Life?

Koenig's first season had been downloaded 68 million times by February 2015 and won a Peabody.

Serial's first season re-examined Adnan Syed's conviction for a 1999 killing in which city's suburbs?

Hae Min Lee was 18; Syed's conviction was vacated in 2022, then reinstated in 2025 with a reduced sentence.

Which newspaper bought Serial Productions in 2020 for a reported $25 million?

Later seasons covered Bowe Bergdahl, Cleveland's courts and Guantanamo Bay.

Who has hosted This American Life since it began on Chicago's WBEZ in 1995?

In 2020 it became the first news programme to win the Pulitzer Prize for Audio Reporting, for the episode 'The Out Crowd'.

The Joe Rogan Experience debuted on Christmas Eve of which year?

Brian Redban was co-host and sole producer until 2012, when Jamie Vernon, of 'pull that up, Jamie' fame, joined.

Which streaming service signed Joe Rogan to an exclusive deal in 2020 worth about $200 million?

Exclusivity ended in 2024 under a new $250 million contract that put the show back on YouTube and Apple.

Which guest's on-air cannabis use on Joe Rogan's show in September 2018 preceded a 9% fall in his company's stock?

It was episode 1,169; Tesla shares dropped the next day.

Marc Maron recorded most episodes of WTF in his Los Angeles garage. What was the garage nicknamed?

The show ran from September 2009 to October 2025, 1,686 episodes in all.

Which sitting US president travelled to Marc Maron's garage in June 2015 to record an episode of WTF?

He came back for the podcast's final episode in 2025, this time recorded in Washington.

Marc Maron's 2010 WTF episode with which guest joined the National Recording Registry?

Maron's long, raw interviews made comedians open up in ways they never did on television.

S-Town (2017) followed clock restorer John B. McLemore in a small town in which state?

Woodstock, Alabama; the title is McLemore's own rude nickname for the place. It hit 10 million downloads in four days.

Which newspaper launched The Daily, hosted by Michael Barbaro, on February 1, 2017?

It reached 3.8 million listeners within seven months and spawned the FX series The Weekly.

How do Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark sign off every episode of My Favorite Murder?

Fans call themselves Murderinos, and the hosts founded the Exactly Right network in 2018.

Alex Cooper's Call Her Daddy started in 2018 under which media company?

She left for a $60 million Spotify deal in 2021, then a $125 million SiriusXM deal in 2024, and interviewed Kamala Harris that October.

Welcome to Night Vale, launched in 2012, is presented in the format of what?

Cecil Baldwin voices the host of the fictional desert town; in July 2013 it overtook This American Life at the top of the iTunes chart.

Which series of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History covered the First World War?

Carlin, who calls his style 'theater of the mind', releases only every four to seven months.

Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant have hosted Stuff You Should Know since 2008 for which brand?

Now distributed by iHeartRadio, it is downloaded more than a million times a week and even got its own Trivial Pursuit edition.

Which producer, later a MacArthur fellow, created Radiolab at WNYC in 2002?

He co-hosted with Robert Krulwich for years; Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser took over after his 2022 retirement.

Roman Mars's 99% Invisible is a podcast about what?

The name comes from a Buckminster Fuller line about the unseen parts of who we are; SiriusXM bought it in 2021.

Which podcast company, founded in 2014 by Alex Blumberg, documented its own launch in the show StartUp?

Spotify bought it for about $230 million in 2019; its shows included Reply All and Homecoming.

Gimlet's thriller Homecoming was adapted for Amazon starring which Oscar-winning actress?

Sam Esmail of Mr. Robot directed the 2018 series, one of the first big podcast-to-TV adaptations.

Which three actors host SmartLess, where one surprises the others with a mystery guest?

Amazon paid about $80 million for it in 2021 and SiriusXM about $100 million in 2024.

In 2022 SiriusXM paid $150 million for Team Coco, the company behind which host's 'Needs a Friend' podcast?

Sona Movsesian and Matt Gourley co-host; Michelle Obama was an early guest in March 2019.

How many recordings does the BBC's Desert Island Discs ask guests to choose?

Castaways also pick a book and a luxury; the Bible and Shakespeare come free. Roy Plomley devised it.

The Rest Is History is hosted by Dominic Sandbrook and which historian, author of Rubicon and Dominion?

Launched in 2020 by Goalhanger, it was the first podcast to win the British Academy's President's Medal.

Crime Junkie hosts Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat are based in which Midwestern city?

Flowers spends about 30 hours researching each episode; the show ranked No. 2 on Apple Podcasts in 2024.

Which company bought Bill Simmons's The Ringer in 2020 for about $200 million?

Netflix later took exclusive video rights to several Ringer shows in 2025.

Dirty John, the 2017 podcast about con man John Meehan, was made with which newspaper?

Christopher Goffard hosted; it hit 10 million downloads in six weeks and became a Bravo series with Connie Britton and Eric Bana.

Ear Hustle was the first podcast made entirely inside a prison. Which one?

Co-creator Earlonne Woods had his sentence commuted in 2018 by Governor Jerry Brown, who cited the show.

Freakonomics Radio, launched in 2010, is hosted by which co-author of the book Freakonomics?

Economist Steven Levitt, the other co-author, is a regular guest and now hosts People I (Mostly) Admire.

Who was the first guest on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert in February 2018?

Shepard's wife kicked off a show that Forbes rated the fourth highest-earning US podcast by 2020, recorded in his attic.

No Such Thing as a Fish is made by the researchers of which BBC panel show?

The 'QI Elves' each bring a favourite fact of the week; Apple named it Best New Podcast in 2014.

Pod Save America is hosted by four former aides to which US president?

Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Tommy Vietor and Dan Pfeiffer launched it through Crooked Media in January 2017.

Which podcast studio, founded in 2016 and bought by Amazon in 2020, made Dr. Death and Business Wars?

Reports put Amazon's price around $300 million; Wondery also produces SmartLess.

Song Exploder, in which musicians dissect one of their own tracks, was created by whom?

Launched in January 2014, it became a Netflix series in 2020 with Alicia Keys and Lin-Manuel Miranda among the guests.

What is Aaron Mahnke's folklore podcast, adapted by Amazon in 2017, called?

It passed 500 million downloads in 2024; the other two shows listed are also Mahnke's.

Which entrepreneur hosts The Diary of a CEO, Britain's most popular streaming podcast in 2025?

Bartlett co-founded Social Chain and joined Dragons' Den; the first episode aired in September 2017.

Gimlet's Reply All, hosted by PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman, was a show about what?

It ran from 2014 to 2022 and imploded after its own 'Test Kitchen' series about Bon Appétit prompted similar allegations about Gimlet.

Which show won the first-ever Golden Globe for Best Podcast in January 2026?

Nominees were drawn from a list of the 25 most-listened-to shows across Apple, Spotify and YouTube.

The Adventure Zone podcast produced the first what to top the NYT trade fiction bestseller list?

The 'Balance' arc was adapted into the bestselling comics; the show launched on Maximum Fun in 2014.

Which London radio station launched the first premium-podcasting platform, LBC Plus, in February 2006?

Its success convinced many that podcasting had serious commercial potential.

Which company, called a 'patent troll' by the EFF, sued Adam Carolla and others in 2013 over a podcasting patent?

The Patent Office invalidated five provisions of the patent in April 2015 after an EFF petition.

A 1965 Westinghouse cassette sales-training programme, seen as an ancestor of podcasts, was called what?

Frank Siedel's firm Storycraft produced 60-minute tapes that salespeople could play in their cars.

Which country had emerged by 2023 as the third-largest podcast market after China and the United States?

China passed 220 million listeners in 2023, while India counted more than 57.6 million.