The Best Growing Comedy Podcasts of 2026 (Part 1): The Monsters
Comedy is the most competitive podcasting category in the world. In English alone, roughly 287,000 active comedy shows are fighting for the same listener hours, and the average comedy podcast has an estimated listener range in the top bucket, meaning a show can be enormous in absolute terms and still be only average for its category. To actually stand out in comedy in 2026, a show has to be moving. Climbing. Gaining ground week over week. Those are the shows advertisers want to buy on the way up, that guests want to pitch before rates triple, and that fans want to find before their group chat does.
This is Part 1 of our two-part breakdown of the fastest-growing comedy podcasts of 2026. The five comedy podcasts in Part 1 are the biggest chart jumpers we logged this cycle: each one climbed at least 64 chart positions in a single window, and together they represent the full range of what 'growing fast' looks like in 2026. For each show you will see the real Apple Podcasts cover art, the actual chart movement we recorded, who the show is for, why it is growing, and how advertisers and podcast guests should read the signal. For the next five shows on the list (the +50 to +64 breakout tier), jump to Part 2: The Best Breakout Comedy Podcasts to Listen To, Advertise On, and Pitch as a Guest in 2026.
In This Part 1
- #1. Unhinged - A Livestock Podcast
- #2. The Adam and Dr. Drew Show
- #3. The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament
- #4. Beach Too Sandy, Water Too Wet
- #5. The Greg Larsen Show
- How We Measured 'Growing'
- The 2026 Comedy Patterns These Shows Share
- How Advertisers Should Read This List
- How Podcast Guests Should Use This List
- Frequently Asked Questions
The Part 1 List: The Monsters
Ranked by chart-position jump in a single cycle. Every cover image below is the real Apple Podcasts artwork; every number is from the actual chart data we sampled on CastFox.
Unhinged - A Livestock Podcast
By Sue Lacy
Why it matters: niche comedy powered by one of the most underrated fuels on the internet right now: livestock, farming, and rural life told with a sharp, self-aware voice.
View on CastFox →Why it is growing in 2026
Niche identity comedy is having a moment in 2026. The biggest breakouts of the last 18 months have not been the generalist bro pods or mega-celebrity panels, they have been creators who pick an extremely specific cultural lane and refuse to water it down. Sue Lacy's Unhinged is the livestock-world version of that playbook: farm life, 4-H memories, county fair chaos, and the unwritten rules of ag Twitter, all narrated with the kind of dry delivery that turns inside jokes into discoverable comedy.
Who should listen
Rural-suburban millennials and Gen X, ag students, 4-H alumni, farm-adjacent creators, and the surprisingly large audience of city listeners who followed the 'farm TikTok' wave into longer-form content.
Advertiser fit
Overlooked advertiser fit: ag tech, feed brands, farm-first fintech, truck and SUV, work apparel (Carhartt-tier), regional banks in ag states, veterinary and pet pharma lines that sell to rural buyers. Urban DTC brands should pass.
Guest and PR angle
If you work in agriculture, farm podcasting, or rural-lifestyle PR, this is a top-5 pitching target in the category for 2026. Lead with a concrete farm story or livestock show anecdote, not a polished media one-pager.
The Adam and Dr. Drew Show
By PodcastOne / Carolla Digital
Why it matters: the iconic Carolla and Pinsky duo back in sync with the 2026 comedy-talk format.
View on CastFox →Why it is growing in 2026
The Adam and Dr. Drew Show is one of the original long-form comedy-talk properties, and it is surging again in 2026 because the format it invented, in-studio buddy-banter cut with medical Q&A, has re-entered its sweet spot with today's video-first audience. Clips off this show travel unusually well on YouTube Shorts and TikTok, and legacy Loveline audiences are re-consolidating around it.
Who should listen
Millennial and Gen X listeners who grew up on Loveline, plus the new cohort of 20-somethings rediscovering the format through short-form clips.
Advertiser fit
Proven fit: men's health, sleep, supplements, mattresses, direct-response DTC. Historically one of the highest host-read CPMs in the category for a reason: Adam Carolla's ad reads convert.
Guest and PR angle
Extremely hard to cold-pitch. Best path is a personality pitch with proven media training and a clear narrative hook, not a book-launch template.
The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament
By Joey Coco Diaz
Why it matters: Joey Diaz's iconic storytelling relaunched with fresh energy and a reset audience.
View on CastFox →Why it is growing in 2026
The Joey Diaz ecosystem is the closest thing stand-up comedy has to a cult, and the relaunch of The Church of What's Happening Now as The New Testament gave longtime listeners a reason to re-subscribe and pulled in a whole cohort of Gen Z fans who discovered Diaz through Netflix specials and Rogan clips. The chart jump from 140 to 66 in a single cycle is one of the strongest 2026 relaunch signals in comedy.
Who should listen
Comedy-club diehards, stand-up obsessives, Joe Rogan adjacent audience, listeners who want long-form raconteur content over news-hook takes.
Advertiser fit
Fit: men's lifestyle, cannabis-adjacent, spirits, supplements, combat sports, DTC brands with a blue-collar voice. Reads do best when the brand lets Joey ad-lib.
Guest and PR angle
If you are a comic, fighter, or storyteller with a verifiable track record, this is a career-making appearance. Not a show for product PR.
Beach Too Sandy, Water Too Wet
By PodcastOne
Why it matters: a comedy concept so simple it is brilliant: siblings read and dramatize real one-star online reviews.
View on CastFox →Why it is growing in 2026
Hosted by sibling duo Amy and Christopher Brown, Beach Too Sandy, Water Too Wet turns the eternally funny world of absurd one-star reviews into character-driven audio comedy. In 2026 it has ridden the renewed 'comfort comedy' wave: people want 25 minutes of low-stakes, deeply funny, work-safe audio, and this show delivers it weekly with a devoted parasocial fanbase.
Who should listen
Women 25-50, commuters, dog-walkers, listeners who treat podcasts as a second-screen background for chores and errands, and fans of observational / improv-adjacent comedy.
Advertiser fit
Exceptional fit: lifestyle DTC, home goods, kitchen, pet, travel, meal kits, subscription boxes. Their audience actually clicks promo codes, which is rarer than advertisers realize.
Guest and PR angle
Not a typical guest show. Pitch value is more about brand partnerships and co-written segments than interview placements.
The Greg Larsen Show
By Greg Larsen
Why it matters: Australian comedian Greg Larsen's high-density, high-IQ solo comedy podcast.
View on CastFox →Why it is growing in 2026
Greg Larsen is one of the clearest examples of Australian comedy breaking through to the global English-language charts. His show rewards close listening with dense, structurally ambitious bits, and in 2026 the audience for that kind of material is bigger and more international than ever. The jump from 189 to 125 is the early shape of a show that tends to keep climbing quarter over quarter.
Who should listen
Comedy fans who stream Australian and British stand-up specials, writers, long-form content creators, and listeners tired of generic chat-pod formatting.
Advertiser fit
Fit: premium audio brands, whiskey and craft spirits, international streaming services, newsletter and reader products (Substack, Matter, Readwise), SaaS with a UK, AU, and US overlap.
Guest and PR angle
High quality bar; not a numbers game. Pitch only if your angle has real substance and can match the host's rhythm.
How We Measured 'Growing' Comedy Podcasts in 2026
'Best growing comedy podcasts' is the kind of phrase that usually comes with no methodology behind it, which is how you end up with list articles that cite the same ten megashows every year. We did it differently. For this list, a podcast is 'growing' only if three things are true at the same time.
- It is in the Comedy category. Primary or clearly dominant secondary classification on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
- It moved up at least 50 chart positions between the previous cycle and the current cycle in its country chart. That filters out shows that are big but flat, and it filters out shows that gain a few spots as normal noise.
- It is actively publishing. A dormant show that briefly reappears on the charts because of a single viral clip is not 'growing,' it is spiking. Every show on both lists has shipped recent episodes.
The 'today rank' and 'previous rank' columns in our chart data are the exact positions the show held in its country-level comedy chart at the two sample moments, and 'jump' is the difference. The shows in Part 1 all moved at least 69 chart spots in a single cycle. The shows in Part 2 each moved 57 to 64. Either tier is well above the noise floor, and either tier is large enough that the trajectory is unlikely to reverse in the next cycle.
Every chart number and listener-range benchmark referenced in this article comes from CastFox's own podcast database. For the background on how we compute listener-range estimates and category competition, read our companion explainer: Podcast Market Insights: How to Benchmark a Show's Audience and Category Competition Before You Buy or Pitch.
The 2026 Comedy Patterns These Shows Share
When you line up ten fast-growing comedy podcasts side by side, patterns emerge. Here are the four we see most clearly in 2026.
1. Specificity beats generality
The single strongest signal across both parts of this list is that the shows growing fastest right now are the shows that picked a sharp lane and committed. Livestock and farm culture. Alt-comedy insider craft. Drew Afualo's commentary worldview. These are not generalist 'two dudes talking' pods. They are identity-first comedies, and the 2026 audience rewards them disproportionately.
2. Relaunches and reboots are outperforming new launches
Three of the ten shows on this list are rebooted or rebranded versions of long-running properties. Relaunching a known show in 2026 is a better audience-acquisition strategy than launching something brand new in comedy, because category saturation has made cold-start discovery punishingly hard.
3. Short-video surfaces keep feeding long-form audio
TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Reels are still the most consistent top-of-funnel for podcast growth, but the dynamic has matured: audiences now expect the long-form show to have a consistent video component too. Shows that ignore the video-clip loop are underperforming their audio quality.
4. Production polish no longer correlates with growth
The conventional wisdom that bigger studios and heavier production drive growth is measurably wrong in 2026. Notes Of A Goon, several of the bilingual and international shows on this list, and multiple comedian-hosted solo pods are growing while sounding deliberately lo-fi. The audience is voting for creative confidence over visual polish.
How Advertisers Should Read This List
A chart-jumping comedy podcast is one of the best buys in audio when it is caught at the right moment. Here is the advertiser playbook.
Buy on the way up, not at the peak
The worst time to buy a comedy podcast is the quarter after it makes every 'best of' year-end list. CPMs triple, host-read availability collapses, and the conversion edge you had vs. competing buyers evaporates. The best time to buy is exactly now: the 50-to-100 rank-jump window, when audience growth has been demonstrated but rates have not repriced yet. Every show on this list is in or adjacent to that window.
Match buyer fit, not gross audience
A show's audience size means nothing if the audience is not your buyer. Unhinged - A Livestock Podcast is a top chart mover, but if you sell luxury urban skincare it is wrong for you. The Comment Section with Drew Afualo is also a top chart mover, and if you sell Gen Z beauty it is potentially the best buy in comedy right now. Use our per-show advertiser-fit notes as a starting shortlist, not a universal rec.
Use Market Insights to price each show fairly
Every one of these podcasts has a live Market Insights card on its CastFox page showing listener range vs. category average and competition badges. Open the card before you take a pitch deck at face value. If you are new to the module, read the full guide: Podcast Market Insights explained.
Bundle Part 1 and Part 2 into one test buy
Instead of spending a full budget on one top-10 comedy show, a smarter 2026 move is to spend the same budget across three or four Part 1 / Part 2 shows that match your buyer. You get measurable channel diversification, you buy into trajectories rather than peaks, and you generate the creative variation needed to tell which audience converts before you commit to a bigger year-two spend.
How Podcast Guests and PR Teams Should Use This List
Getting booked on a top-of-chart comedy podcast is one of the highest-leverage single placements in modern PR. It is also the most competitive. Here is how to use this list without burning out your outreach list.
- Start with the Part 2 tier. The +57 to +64 jumps are still large enough to be meaningful, but pitch competition is lower than on Part 1 shows, and response rates are typically 2-3x higher.
- Lead with the show's own thesis, not yours. Every show on this list has a specific editorial identity. Your pitch should reference that identity directly. A book-launch template that ignores the show is the fastest way to a deleted email.
- Get on the show twice. The second appearance converts vastly better than the first. Plan the follow-up pitch before you send the first one.
- Use CastFox My Pitches to track every outreach. Comedy show bookers have long memories and appreciate polite, professional follow-ups, not cold re-sends.
Keep Reading
This is Part 1. For the next five breakout comedy podcasts on the list, read Part 2: The Breakouts. And if you want to understand the underlying audience benchmarks we use throughout this article, read our full guide to Podcast Market Insights.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often do these chart rankings change?
Comedy chart positions can shift meaningfully within a single week, especially around new-episode drops and viral clips. CastFox refreshes chart data continuously, and the numbers in this article reflect a single sampled cycle. Expect exact rank positions to move by the time you read this, but the trajectory signals (who is climbing vs. flat vs. falling) are stable over longer windows.
Why didn't you include [mega comedy show]?
Because it was not growing in the window we sampled. A show can be enormous and flat. Flat is not growing. This list is built entirely around chart movement, not absolute audience size. For absolute-size rankings, see our companion best podcasts lists.
Are these rankings US-only?
The chart data is country-level, and most of the shows on this list sampled strongest in English-language US charts, with Loud in New York and one or two others showing strong cross-country movement. Where the show is bilingual or non-English, we have flagged it explicitly.
Can I advertise on more than one of these shows through CastFox?
Yes. Build a List of the shows that fit your buyer, use My Pitches to send outreach, and set Alerts so you get notified when any of them publish an episode worth pitching around.
How do I find shows like these in categories other than comedy?
Use PodcastGPT with a prompt like "find me comedy podcasts that gained 50+ chart positions in the last cycle," substituting any category name. The same growth signal works in business, health, true crime, and sports.
Did any of these shows pay to be included?
No. This list is compiled from neutral chart data and editorial selection. No show, network, or PR representative paid for placement.
The Bottom Line
The comedy chart in 2026 is not a static leaderboard of the ten biggest names in the industry. It is a constantly shifting ecosystem where the most interesting audiences are the ones attaching themselves to shows on the way up. The ten podcasts across Part 1 and Part 2 of this series are the clearest 2026 examples of that motion, and if you are building a podcast advertising plan, a guest outreach list, or simply a better listen queue, these are the shows worth paying attention to right now.
Find more growing comedy podcasts on CastFox
Open any comedy podcast on CastFox to see its Market Insights, listener range, Top Audience chip, and contact data. Build your shortlist and pitch in one place.