Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
After the brouhaha of Spotify Wrapped last week, Apple Podcasts has dropped its own end-of-year charts. Apple Podcasts’ daily charts already show which titles are trending year-round, but its year-end charts are an indicator of which shows are doing best on a consistent basis: and no surprise, true-crime programming reigns supreme.
Crime Junkie took the top spot on Apple’s list of biggest shows of 2022, followed by The Daily, Dateline NBC, Morbid, and SmartLess. The last time Apple issued its year-end top podcast chart in 2020, only The Daily and Crime Junkie were in the top five. This year’s top 10 featured a blast from the past with Serial, which came in at No. 8. The 2014 show got a boost from the recent exoneration of subject Adnan Syed.
Although the chart gives us a clear idea of which type of shows do well, it is only one piece of the puzzle. Missing from the list are juggernauts like Joe Rogan Experience and Call Her Daddy, which are exclusive to Spotify. The only show that overlapped between Apple and Spotify’s year-end charts was Crime Junkie.
Apple also issued a list of the top new shows of 2022, which was topped by The Deck, Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade, and The Thing about Helen & Olga. None of the top 20 new shows made it into the top 20 overall.
Here’s Apple’s full list of the top 20 shows for 2022:
Crime Junkie
The Daily
Dateline NBC
Morbid
SmartLess
This American Life
Up First
Serial
The Ben Shapiro Show
Hidden Brain
Stuff You Should Know
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle
Radiolab
Fresh Air
Freakonomics Radio
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!
Something Was Wrong