When Jay Shetty launched his show On Purpose in 2019, he heard that he was arriving late to a saturated market. Seven years later, the four largest streaming services bid for it. Spotify will distribute it in audio and video, the show will also run on Netflix, and the two companies will pay the 38-year-old host an estimated $100 million over three years.
“When I started, video wasn't normal for a podcast. Now we had the four largest streamers bidding for the show. To see that kind of interest and enthusiasm was pretty amazing, for me and for the industry overall,” Shetty told Forbes.
Shetty ranks 14th in the list Forbes published on 30 July 2026, with $21 million over the past twelve months from his previous distribution and advertising deal with iHeartMedia. Joe Rogan remains at the top with an estimated $82 million, mainly thanks to his Spotify deal. The first twenty names earned $638 million together, an average of $31.9 million per person. Rogan alone accounts for roughly 13% of that sum, and the bottom of the top twenty sits at $18 million.
Behind him come Ashley Flowers's true-crime show Crime Junkie with $42 million and the comedy show SmartLess with $37 million. Forbes counts pre-tax income from minimum guarantees, revenue shares, platform fees and live events for the period from June 2025 to June 2026. It excludes income from film, television, advertising partnerships, investments and other businesses outside podcasting.
Rights stay with the creator
Unlike makers of film or television, podcasters retain ownership rights to the content of their shows. Networks and platforms pay millions only to license a show for a set number of years as a distributor and advertising sales partner. That is one reason why premium streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu and Tubi overlooked the industry's rise for a decade and let YouTube grow into the largest podcast platform in the world.
Since 2025, video platforms have entered the market of audio distributors, which includes Spotify, SiriusXM and Amazon, aiming to take a bite out of YouTube's lead in time spent watching. According to Forbes, this pushed fees into a range that used to belong to film stars. Netflix became a significant player quickly, licenses video versions of top podcasts and is going after premium names aggressively. Shetty's On Purpose started running on it this month.
Creators build companies around a show
The strongest names build a wider company around a single show. Steven Bartlett expanded The Diary of a CEO into a media firm, and with the production house Flight Story he sits in third place with $45 million. Alex Cooper built the Unwell network around Call Her Daddy, and Charlamagne Tha God runs the Black Effect Podcast Network. According to Forbes, such networks are becoming long-term assets that can be sold or extended into television and film.
The model works outside the big distributors too. Four of the top twenty work independently of a major podcast network, among them Bartlett, Joe Budden, Andrew Huberman and Scott Galloway. Traditional audio companies nevertheless remain in the biggest deals. SiriusXM, Spotify, Wondery, iHeartMedia, Audioboom and Acast each have several shows on the list.
OpenAI bought a podcast
Second place went to John Coogan and Jordi Hays of TBPN with $70 million. Their show was bought by OpenAI in April 2026, the first acquisition of a media company for an artificial intelligence lab. According to the Wall Street Journal, TBPN made around $5 million from advertising in 2025 and is expected to exceed $30 million this year. OpenAI did not disclose the terms of the deal; the show falls under its strategy division and keeps its editorial independence and its choice of guests.
“TBPN is my favorite tech show. We want them to keep that going and for them to do what they do so well,” wrote Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, on X, according to CNBC.
A European creator in an American ranking
The highest-ranked European name is Bartlett. Among mostly American shows, he shows that an eight-figure podcast business can be built outside the United States. For a brand considering a partnership with a creator, this changes the negotiating position. On the other side of the table sits a company that owns its own audience and its own catalogue of shows.
Money in podcasting flows from licensing content that remains the creator's property. The highest earnings go to those who can sell the same rights repeatedly.
Comments