Audioboom's 'Casefile True Crime' has topped the Australian Podcast Ranker for February, with an 83% lift in monthly listeners (878, 248) as the title returns from its annual summer break.

Strong growth in listeners was recorded across the top 10 podcasts, with Shameless lifting monthly listenership by 24% to 639,860, Mamamia Outloud up 50% to 579,409 and The Kyle & Jackie O Show up 46% to 515,273. ABC News Daily saw a particularly high surge, landing in tenth place after monthly listeners grew 241% to 318,532.

Nine new podcasts made their debut in February, five of which were produced locally. 'Happy Hour with Lucy & Nicki' (Listnr) was a notable newcomer, debuting as the 16th most listened to podcast for the month.

Across the top 10 rankings, nine had seen positive growth in listener numbers, with all but one of these chalking up double-digit growth.

The Australian-made podcasts in the top 20 most listened to in February predominantly featured female hosts or co-hosts, including all five of the locally produced newcomers.

"While audience loyalty is reflected in listener numbers of Australia's leading podcasts, the Australian podcast scene continues to reflect the diversity of content and hosts available to listeners, allowing them to quickly add new favourites," Ennals commented.

The top five podcast genres by listener numbers in February were Society & Culture, News, True Crime, Comedy, and Sport.

ARN/iHeart was the top publisher, with 4.551monthly listeners, ahead of Listnr (SCA) with 3.178 million. Listnr had the top sales representation with 6.99 monthly listeners across Schwartz Media, SiriusXM Podcast Network, audiochuck, Wondery, DM Podcasts, and NBCUniversal News Group, as well as its own network.

The Australian Podcast Ranker, commissioned by Commercial Radio & Audio (CRA) and published by Triton Digital, provides a monthly snapshot of the top 200 podcasts listened to by Australians, the top 200 Australian podcasts, the 20 biggest publishers, and the 20 most successful podcast sales representatives.

SCA was quick to tout Listnr's position as Australia's number one podcast network for sales representation in February, and noted on top of its 7 million listeners in February, published podcasts had grown by more than 550,000 monthly listeners year on year.

Listnr had 18 podcasts in the top 50 of the Top 200 Australian Podcast Ranker, which it pointed out was more than double that of its closest competitor. In addition, Listnr's published ‘owned and operated’ podcasts grew their monthly audience to 3.178 million listeners, an increase of 552,877 monthly listeners year on year.

7am with Schwartz Media continued its run as the number one news podcast and The Howie Games is the most popular sports podcast in the Top 200 Podcasts. In addition, Happy Hour with Lucy & Nikki made a debut at number 16 with 261,201 monthly listeners on the Top 200 Podcasts. Other popular Listnr podcasts in the top 50 include Hamish & Andy, Crime Junkie, Darling, Shine!, It’s A Lot with Abbie Chatfield, Morbid and Hamish & Andy’s Remembering Project.

“Listnr has increased its overall audience in February to strengthen its uncontested number one Sales Representation Network position. On a year-on-year basis from February 2023 to February 2024,” SCA Executive Head Listnr Podcasts, Grant Tothill, said. “The latest Secrets We Keep investigative podcast, Nest of Traitors, which launched at the start of February is really starting to build audience and with new works in the pipeline Secrets We Keep will continue to grow and strengthen our investigative story telling position.”