Comeback is a tough word to tie to Megyn Kelly, since the former Fox and NBC News anchor has never really been far out of the media spotlight. But in recent months Kelly has seemed to have hit her stride on audio. Last fall TheRighting reported Kelly had the fastest-growing conservative talk podcast. Now it says The Megyn Kelly Show continued that pace during the second quarter as it had the third-highest growth rate during Q2, pushing the podcast into the list of top ten conservative shows.
TheRighting – which bases its analysis on Castbox data – says Kelly’s show ranked tenth with a 41% increase in its subscriber numbers as of June 30 compared to a year ago. That included the addition of 12,265 new subscribers on the Castbox platform during second quarter. That was the second biggest addition for new subscribers. The top honor went to the first place The Ben Shapiro Show, which added 52,362 subscribers during the quarter according to the analysis.
Kelly launched her podcast in September 2020 when she formed her own company called Devil May Care Media. Since then, Kelly’s podcast has benefited from a larger platform following her move in 2021 to SiriusXM where she now hosts a daily talk show on its Triumph talk channel. And following its premiere on the Triumph channel, the radio version of “The Megyn Kelly Show” was made available as a podcast. There is also a video version of the show, which is available on the SXM app and social media platforms.
TheRighting says second quarter was another strong one for Shaprio’s home, The Daily Wire. Its podcast network continued to post healthy gains based on the Castbox numbers. Other Daily Wire shows also had big gains in their show followers. The Morning Wire podcast saw its subscriber numbers jump 56% year to year, while the Candance Owens podcast saw its numbers rise 50%.
In terms of sheer numbers, Shapiro had the biggest gain in subscriber count, followed by Kelly, and TheDan Bongino Show, which added 11,789 subscribers on Castbox versus a year earlier. “While right wing podcasting is dominated overwhelmingly by white men, the podcasts from Megyn Kelly and Candace Owens have quietly grown their subscriber base over the past year to become fixtures in TheRighting’s quarterly top 20 chart,” said Howard Polskin, President of TheRighting. “They are positioned to become dominant players in this important corner of right-wing media for the near future and beyond.”
TheRighting’s report is based on data that is updated daily from the podcast app Castbox, which is the sixth most popular app on the podcast-hosting platform Buzzsprout. Castbox represents 1.6% of all podcasts that Buzzsprout serves. While it only offers a small slice of the podcast market overall, TheRighting says it provides a snapshot of the market for conservative podcast voices. It also points out that no other leading podcast app besides Castbox makes its data available.
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