The State of Podcasting 2026

How long are news podcasts?

The typical top-charting news podcast runs 35 minutes an episode: that is the median of 114 shows' own medians, from 29,366 episodes released in the 12 months to 2 October 2026. That makes news the shortest of the 11 big categories, 15 minutes under the all-chart figure of 50 minutes. 58% of episodes are under 30 minutes.

By the Slice research teamUpdated 2 October 2026How we did it

Get this page’s data The State of Podcasting 2026

35 mintypical show’s median episode
12%of episodes run over an hour
21.6episodes a month, median show
11th of 11categories, longest first

How long is a news podcast episode?

Across all 29,366 news episodes, the median is 26.2 minutes and the middle half run 15 to 43 minutes. Only a tenth run past 65 minutes.

Show

Full episodes released in the 12 months to 2 October 2026, in minutes.

10th percentile	10.1	10.1
25th percentile	15.4	22.8
Median episode	26.2	41.8
75th percentile	42.5	61.7
90th percentile	64.7	92.7
Median of show medians	35.3	49.9

Are news podcasts longer than other categories?

No: news is among the shortest. News is the shortest, at 35 minutes.

Median of each show's own median length. Categories with at least 40 charting shows.

Free toolHow does your show compare?The free stats checker ranks your podcast’s episode count, age and pace against 4.4 million others.

How often do news podcasts publish?

News is a daily business: 46% of these shows put out five or more episodes a week, against 15% of all chart shows. The most common schedule among the 114 charting news shows is daily (5+ a week) (53).

Schedule over the last 182 days of each feed.

How long are the top news podcasts?

The ten highest on Apple's US News chart, with each show's median episode. Across all 114 charting news shows the range runs from NPR News Now (5 min) to Xadrez Verbal (249 min).

Show

Apple Podcasts US News chart, 2 October 2026.

1	The Daily	42 min	4.8
2	Up First from NPR	14 min	31.9
3	Pod Save America	80 min	12.9
4	The Megyn Kelly Show	103 min	20.6
5	The Bulwark Daily	57 min	21.6
7	NPR News Now	5 min	n/a
8	Candace	63 min	13.2
9	The Headlines	10 min	21.6
10	Morning Wire	17 min	55.4
11	IHIP News	19 min	83.3

How many news podcasts are there?

The Podcast Index lists 226,457 shows filed under News, 5.2% of all podcasts. 27,345 of them published in the 90 days to 26 September 2026: 12.1% of the category, a higher survival rate than the 9.4% for all podcasts.

Every category in the Podcast Census 2026

Questions

How long should a news podcast be?

There is no rule, but the top-charting news shows have a median episode of 35 minutes, and half of their episodes run between 15 and 43 minutes.

How many episodes a month do news podcasts release?

The median charting news show released 21.6 episodes a month over the last six months; 46% published daily and 12% weekly.

What share of news podcast episodes are over an hour?

11.9% of the 29,366 news episodes released in the past year ran over 60 minutes, and 58.2% were under 30.

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Where do these numbers come from?

Slice, The State of Podcasting 2026: the RSS feed of every show on Apple Podcasts' top charts in six countries and eleven US genre charts, read on 2 October 2026. Category counts from the Podcast Census 2026 (Podcast Index database of 26 September 2026).

n = 114 news shows and 29,366 episodes. Last updated 2 October 2026.

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