Oxford Road Finds it Isn't Politics as Usual When it Comes to Podcast Ad Performance

Oct. 27, 2026

Oxford Road announces “ORBIT's Top Performing News & Politics Podcasts,” its latest podcast rankings based on actual sales results, drawing from campaign data representing over $2 billion in advertiser spend.

With the U.S. midterm elections just weeks away, news and politics podcast categories are getting plenty of advertiser traction. But the new ORBIT ranking demonstrates that if you make common assumptions when investing in the news or politics genres, you may come up short.

The top insights:

• The News is Good for News Shows: Of the top shows in the news and politics category, the news genre dominated the survey, with 12 programs total, including the top three entries: Morning Wire (#3), Mo News (#2), and Lovett or Leave It (#1). While some may claim they’re tuning out the news, it remains a widely popular category. 
• No Single Publisher Dominates the List… Our ranker is remarkably varied, with 10 different publishers responsible for the top 15 news and politics shows. And while companies like Red Seat Ventures and The Daily Wire have multiple programs, no single network owns the list.
• …But Crooked Media Has Built the Deepest Bench: The publisher has four shows in the Top 15: What A Day (#15); Pod Save America (#6); Offline With Jon Favreau (#4); and Lovett or Leave It (#1). That gives buyers a great opportunity to test individual programs, as well as to experiment with package options within a single publisher.
• The Line-Up Doesn’t Lean In One Direction: The shows that landed in our ranker include such traditionally conservative programs as The Ben Shapiro Show (#8) and The AM Update With Megyn Kelly (#7), as well as progressive-leaning shows like The Meidastouch Podcast (#12) and The Majority Report with Sam Seder (#11). The politics and news landscape is more diverse in podcasting than in other mediums, and there are opportunities for savvy buyers to reach audiences on both sides of the aisle.

How ORBIT Works

Findings were surfaced using ORBIT (Oxford Road Benchmark Intelligence Tool), which is built on the industry's largest index of podcast advertising performance data. The system measures actual customer acquisition costs, return on ad spend, and sales results from real campaigns. Oxford Road has processed more podcast advertising performance data than any other agency, creating an index that normalizes results across different advertiser goals and verticals.

For performance marketers, the tool enables advertisers to de-risk initial buys, optimize faster, and find high-performing shows before they become expensive. 

Oxford Road will continue to release new ORBIT rankings monthly, covering categories including genre-specific performance, international markets, emerging shows, and vertical-specific results. Each ranking draws from Oxford Road's proprietary database of campaign outcomes across podcasting, streaming audio, terrestrial radio, and creator-based video.

The full “ORBIT's Top Performing News & Politics Podcasts” list and methodology details are available here.