On Wednesday, Time Magazine released the 100 Best Podcasts of All Time list. To say it drew some strong reactions was an understatement.
For instance, the Barstool Sports podcast Pardon My Take — which probably deserves a spot on the list — shared Time Magazine calling a certain German chancellor its “Person of the Year” in 1938 in protest of not receiving placement as one of the best shows of all-time.
Six programs from the news and politics category made it onto the list. I don’t know that I can deny that any deserve to be included. If the list were a ranking instead, it’s like that The Daily from The New York Times is in the top five, or perhaps even in the top spot.
But, it’s just a list and not a ranking, so instead of complaining about where podcasts are ranked, I’m looking at which podcasts were listed. Or, more specifically, which podcasts weren’t listed.
Because while The Daily, Embedded, The Ezra Klein Show, Longform, Plain English with Derek Thompson, and The Prince are all included, there were three glaring omissions from the list.
Pod Save America
When you talk about politically influential podcasts, Pod Save America is impossible to ignore. Launched by former Obama staffers Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Tommy Vietor, and Dan Pfeiffer, the show didn’t just bring a new voice to progressive politics — it helped turn a generation of casual listeners into politically active citizens.
At a time when traditional media struggled to connect with younger audiences, especially young Democrats, the hosts of Pod Save America brought political analysis down to earth. The result? A show that helped shape narratives during key election cycles.
Its success didn’t come from clickbait or viral outrage, though conservative counterparts may disagree. It came from trust. Millions have listened not just for takes, but for a sense of political direction — what to care about, who to hold accountable, and how to get involved.
Whether you agree with its politics or not, Pod Save America changed the landscape of political podcasting. It redefined what partisan commentary could look like in a podcast format, and its absence from any all-time list would be a glaring omission.
Cultural impact? Check. Influence? Undeniable. A list of the 100 Best Podcasts of All-Time from Time Magazine feels incomplete without it.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Whether you agree with him or not, Shapiro has built one of the most influential and consistently downloaded political podcasts of the past decade. Daily Wire’s flagship show helped redefine conservative media for the digital age and proved that long-form political commentary could thrive in podcast form.
Shapiro’s show pioneered a business model that blends audio, video, and subscription-based content. The podcast also brought political talk back to younger audiences, especially those who had abandoned AM radio.
Time’s list of the 100 Best Podcasts of All Time seems more focused on cultural cachet and ideological alignment than actual impact.
Again, whether you like the content of the program or not is irrelevant. The Ben Shapiro Show — which has featured more than 2,000 episodes and was later added to hundreds of radio stations through an agreement with Westwood One, which ended in 2024 — is one of the most influential political podcasts in the world.
Like Pod Save America, few podcasts have had the ability to shape the narrative on one side of the political aisle like Shapiro’s program. Does that deserve some recognition, even if you aren’t a fan of the content? In my view, the answer is an unequivocal yes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
Joe Rogan is the face of modern podcasting. His show didn’t just break records — it changed the way people consume spoken-word content. At its peak, The Joe Rogan Experience was drawing more listeners than prime-time cable news shows, regularly ranking No. 1 on Spotify, and securing a reported hundreds of millions in deals with Spotify that signaled the mainstream arrival of the medium.
Rogan pioneered the marathon-format podcast, ditching time constraints and letting longform conversation thrive. He created a space where guests from a wide array of facets and avenues could sit for hours and speak uninterrupted and unfiltered. As a result, millions tuned in. And continue to tune in.
Critics focus on controversial guests or polarizing opinions, but that misses the point. The impact of The Joe Rogan Experience is undeniable. It’s the podcast that turned the medium from a niche hobby into a full-fledged industry.
The list from Time Magazine, for all its prestige, loses credibility by sidelining the very shows that built the foundation for podcasting’s explosion. If influence, innovation, and audience matter, The Joe Rogan Experience isn’t just deserving — it’s essential.
Leaving it off isn’t just a snub. It’s borderline insulting. And it tells us more about the list’s creators than it does about podcast history.
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
